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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26424337">lovefool</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovestained/pseuds/lovestained'>lovestained</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Armin Arlert &amp; Eren Yeager Are Best Friends, Armin Arlert/Eren Yeager Fluff, Asexual Armin Arlert, Badass Mikasa Ackerman, Canonical Character Death, Coming of Age, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Levi &amp; Eren Yeager Are Best Friends, Levi &amp; Eren Yeager are the Same Age, Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin) Swears, Levi Loves Eren Yeager, Lowercase, M/M, Minor Mikasa Ackerman/Armin Arlert/Eren Yeager, Overprotective Mikasa Ackerman, POV Alternating, Pining Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin), Protective Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin), Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, bildungsroman, eren &amp; armin are leftist feminists because i said so, mikasa is violent but with good reason, unsatisfying ending</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 03:00:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>25,330</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26424337</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovestained/pseuds/lovestained</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>maybe i am a lovefool.</p><p>❦❦❦❦❦</p><p>from birth, kuchel ackerman and carla jaeger made sure their sons were best friends. bringing them to the park to interact and enrolling them in the same elementary was one of the few things they did to ensure. their plans for their kids were for them to enjoy each other and, perhaps, live happily ever after. their plans were forcibly changed when kuchel ackerman does not live to see their glory.</p><p>or perhaps, was it all over the minute armin arlert walked into their school?</p><p>❦❦❦❦❦</p><p>© 2020 ➸ phillip<br/>lowercase bildungsroman (coming-of-age), pov alternating between main characters.</p><p>❦❦❦❦❦</p><p>read this on <a href="https://www.wattpad.com/story/237470152-lovefool-eren-x-levi">wattpad,</a> if you wish.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Armin Arlert &amp; Eren Yeager, Armin Arlert/Eren Yeager, Kuchel Ackerman/Carla Yeager, Levi &amp; Eren Yeager, Levi/Eren Yeager</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. prologue.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>my inspirations -<br/>songs ; lovefool by the cardigans and 「中庭の少女たち」by shishamo.<br/>books ; every exquisite thing by matthew quick (a great bildungsroman book, i recommend)<br/>anime ; given by natsuki kisu</p><p>key -<br/>♡ ; main segment of the chapter.<br/>♥ ; short segment of the chapter; something small that happened that year.<br/>❥ ; a flashback. the number of ❥'s determine how old they were when the flashback happened.</p><p> </p><p>this is my first time writing slice-of-life, please leave suggestions, comments, or reviews.</p><p>- phillip</p>
    </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>trigger warning: this includes suicide. if you are not in a healthy mindset, or unstable in general, i'd advise you not to read.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦<br/>❦❦❦</p><p>eren had fallen asleep.</p><p>armin trembled, shaky tears plummeting from his face to the sand. as he looked to the water, it didn't seem to matter how much money his grandfather would pay for therapy, or how much eren loved him.</p><p>the water didn't seem that scary anymore. it was more of a ballad, an ode to sleep.</p><p>"it's a little thing, death," armin whispered to himself, tiptoeing further away from the shores. "i will fall asleep and it all will be over."</p><p>the lullaby of the lake sung to him, enticing him to come further, to take a swim in its glistening waters. armin cried out as he walked deeper into the cold water, feeling the dirt under him vanish. still, eren snored on the grass, oblivious to the world.</p><p>at this exact moment, he could not register how much eren loved him or how much mikasa loved him. all he could see was the fact that reality was too distant of a run for him. how could he ever attach himself to someone, <em>something </em>when he did not even believe they were alive, physical?</p><p>how could he ever love something to the point of holding on when it all felt like a simulation to him?</p><p>as wise and all-knowing armin arlert had been for the last fifteen years of his life, for this one time, the last time, he didn't know what to do.</p><p>the tides had decided for him.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. prologue.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><br/>
♡<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>"congratulations on the baby, kuchel. i'm so sorry i haven't been able to talk to you before, with all these night shifts and..."</p><p>"no problem, no problem," kuchel said with a wave of her hand, bouncing the kid on her leg.</p><p>carla brushed a strand of hair out her face and smiled. she looked down at her own child.</p><p>"eren, don't put your mouth on that! it's nasty and has all types of germs."</p><p>eren glanced up at his mother and cooed, putting his hand back in his mouth with a grin. carla sighed and returned her attention to kuchel.</p><p>"<em>kids.</em> if grisha wasn't so eager to have them, heaven knows how stress-free i could be right now."</p><p>"oh, but they're worth it all the same," kuchel said, holding levi's sippy cup to his mouth. "i would've never changed this if i ever had a choice."</p><p>carla reached out for kuchel's hand, enclosing it between hers.</p><p>"kuchel, do you know? i've been thinking of you, and my heart aches for you with every given moment. i wish i could do more for you right now. nobody is able to understand how you feel right now, and i hope you understand that."</p><p>kuchel was caught between a gasp and a choke. she coughed, wiped her eyes, and sighed.</p><p>"ever since he died, i've just been on the edge, yeah? with, uh, with everything, really," she said, getting quieter with every word, "and you know, levi looks<em> so</em> much like his father."</p><p>"he does, he does," carla said, putting a hand on her cheek, and the other hand stopping eren from running off.</p><p>"he was the love of my life. he really was," she said, her eyes reddening. she looked down and carla got up from her seat across from her kuchel to sit next to her. she rubbed her back and eren stared curiously.</p><p>"it's like, i..." her voice cut off, drowned out by her bubbling cries. she wiped her eyes and sniffed.</p><p>"whenever i'm alone, i get these thoughts, and i, i just–i need someone to be there for me right now."</p><p>"yes, yes, of course, kuchel. always, okay? we'll raise levi together, and he'll be the best child you'll see by far, okay? eren, no, no, <em>stop</em> doing that."</p><p>"you don't have to do that, carla. i birthed levi, i can take ca–"</p><p>"i birthed eren, but do you think in any universe i would not allow grisha to watch him whenever i'm on the night shift?"</p><p>kuchel chuckled. "grisha is an exception. you've kept that man on a tight leash, he would probably abide by your every command out of fear."</p><p>"as he should! if i popped this baby out and go to work every day, he <em>should</em> fear me. i <em>am</em> superior."</p><p>kuchel took a large gulp out of her green tea. levi was sleeping now, stretched out on the booth. kuchel lifted him up and hoisted him on her waist with a groan.</p><p>"as if they don't weigh enough already."</p><p>"they always seem to get heavier when they're sleepy," carla said, getting up with eren and putting him on her waist. "heaven knows how i'll be able to carry eren when he's older. i can barely carry him now!"</p><p>kuchel walked out the door and was now on the sidewalk, facing carla and eren.</p><p>"i, um, <em>thank</em> you."</p><p>"what'd you say? i couldn't hear, eren was sputtering by my ear," carla said, opening up the exit for her.</p><p>"thank you, for, uh, everything. it was really fun, and i liked it."</p><p>"it's no problem at all! i love going out for tea with you, especially with the kids and stuff... call me whenever?"</p><p>"yeah, uh, sure," kuchel said, putting levi in the car seat. she got in her seat and adjusted her mirror. looking at levi through the mirror, she smiled.</p><p>"levi?"</p><p>he was sucking on a teething toy, but pulled it out his mouth and looked at his mother, babbling.</p><p>"i think you and eren will be grand friends."<br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>♥</p><p><br/>
eren pulled himself up on the chair, cheered on by the whoops of both his parents.</p><p>"outstanding job, eren! you're doing so well, baby!" carla said, clapping her hands. eren glanced at his mom and dad reaching their arms to him, and he took one step forward.</p><p>"yes! there you go, eren! keep doing it, keep going!"</p><p>eren took one more step before falling into his mother's arms. his dad, who was behind carla, patted his back and picked him up.</p><p>"that was so good! i'm so proud of you, son!"</p><p>eren giggled as grisha bounced him up and down. carla squished his cheeks.</p><p>"you're such a smart child. we love you so much."<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>♥<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>"i love you so much."</p><p>kuchel sat in the middle of the room with levi, trying to soothe his crying.</p><p>"i love you so much, lev. i love you more than everything."</p><p>levi was swaddled in a warm blanket in kuchel's arms. he wasn't loudly fussing like he was earlier, but he wasn't drifting to sleep either. with eyes big and bold, he stared up at kuchel.</p><p>she was trying his best to calm him down with the little resources she had. being a single mom, she wasn't able to bring in stable money and care for levi at the same time, so with the help of extremely odd jobs and babysitting, she was able to bring in enough money to pay bills.</p><p>and so, levi did not have many toys. living was expensive; not to mention taking care of an entire child. she would be lying if she said that she never had the thought of neglecting her son. but, between carla's hope and levi's heart, she never could bring herself to act on her thoughts.</p><p>"yove?"</p><p>kuchel stared at levi with astonishment, before a beaming smile sketched its way unto her mouth.</p><p>"love, lev. love."</p><p>"yove."</p><p>kuchel kissed levi on the head and then nodded. "love."</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. two years.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><br/>♡♡<br/><br/></p><p>carla put eren's shoes on his feet so they could go to the playground, though eren was more fixated on the jar at the middle of the table.</p><p>"c'mon, eren, it's time to go to the park to see levi."</p><p>"cookie?" he asked, pointing at the container.</p><p>"if you talk to levi today, i'll let you have a cookie when we come back. okay?"</p><p>"yes, mommy," he said, grabbing her hand.</p><p>grisha was home today and the car was free, but eren liked it better when they walked to the park. he got to see all <em>sorts</em> of things before they got there, including his neighbor chasing cats out of her yard, or a plastic bag floating in the air.</p><p>"are you excited to see levi?"</p><p>"i don't know," eren said, clutching his mommy's hand.</p><p>carla walked eren through the iron gate and towards the slides. eren wanted to clap his hands in delight.</p><p>"kuchel!" carla said, hugging a woman with long black hair. she was carrying a baby—or, at least, eren thought it was, because his mommy <em>never</em> carried him, and he was a big boy—on her shoulder, and smiled at eren.</p><p>"hey, carla! i was expecting to see grisha, honestly. you should be sleeping, seeing as you have the night shift!"</p><p>carla shrugged. "i needed to get out today, anyway. i can never stay choked up at home for long."</p><p>"hey, little birdie," kuchel said, dropping to eren's height to grab his cheek. "levi's a little sleepy right now, he just had his nap. can you get him to wake up?"</p><p>eren nodded and kuchel put down levi. the boy nearly collapsed to the ground and collected himself.</p><p>they stared at each other for three seconds at a time, before eren turned back to his mom.</p><p>"eren, what do you say to levi?"</p><p>"hi, levi!"</p><p>levi sped off back to his mom, cowering behind him. kuchel chuckled.</p><p>"he's just a bit shy, that's all," kuchel said. "levi, if you go play with eren, we can go to the store later."</p><p>"<em>store</em>?"</p><p>"yeah, levi. the store," she said, cooing. levi nodded and walked in front of kuchel again.</p><p>"hi."</p><p>after that, levi pulled out his favorite toy and began to play with it on the ground, completely in his own world. eren, clearly overstimulated by the mere interaction with a kid his age, snatched the toy from him.</p><p>levi stared at the toy that eren held in his hands with an enigmatic smile for a moment, properly registering the crime the boy had just committed.</p><p>carla was not fast enough to tell eren to give the toy back to levi before he started loudly bawling, his head high into the air and red, and his feet hitting the pavement repeatedly.</p><p>"eren, that was really mean!" carla said, looking eren in the eye. "that was levi's toy, and it isn't right to take other people's toys without asking! go say sorry to levi and give him back his toy."</p><p>eren walked back to the bumbling levi and handed him back the rolling teacup, muttering an apology.</p><p>levi huffed and played with the toy next to his mother on the bench, not even bothering to get up anymore to play with eren.<br/><br/></p><p>♥♥</p><p><br/>"head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes," kuchel sang to levi, pointing at each body part. levi bounced up and down as she did, trying to copy her.</p><p>"head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes, and eyes, and ears, and mouth, and nose! head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes!"</p><p>kuchel gave him a 'boop!' on the nose, quietly giggling.</p><p>"can you show me where your shoulders are?"</p><p>levi pointed to his shoulders, followed by a whooping noise from his mother.</p><p>"good job, lev! now tell me, where is your... mouth?"</p><p>levi pointed to his mouth, smiling.</p><p>"i don't think so. i think my mouth is right here!"</p><p>she pointed to her nose, obviously trying to evoke a reaction from levi. levi snickered and shook his head.</p><p>"that's your <em>nose</em>, not your mouth!"<br/><br/></p><p>♥♥<br/><br/></p><p>a putrid, malodorous stench floated and swam its way from eren's crib to carla's nose. although she was the first to notice it, grisha was the one who took the time to get up and inspect.<br/><br/>"carla, carla, honey," grisha said, shaking her awake. she groaned.<br/><br/>"oh... what is it?"</p><p>"do you smell that?"</p><p>"yeah, sure, i do, let's just handle it in the morning..." she said, tossing to the other side of the bed and pulling the blanket to her neck.</p><p>"alright, alright, fine, you go to sleep, and i'll see," grisha said, patting carla's arm twice and getting off the bed.</p><p>his first thought, judging by the odor, was that eren had peed in his training underwear again. but, as he neared eren's room, he knew that it was way more than just ammonia.</p><p>eren's crib was soaking wet in one spot, though the toddler himself was sleeping peacefully on his back, limbs stretched out.</p><p>grisha picked him up and, with one whiff, recognized that eren had done <em>both</em> deeds while he was sleeping.</p><p>it wasn't particularly eren's fault he did both in his training underwear. grisha had forgotten to take him to the bathroom before settling him down for sleep, and if grisha did not remember, then eren would most likely pee in his sleep. carla, being on the night shift, was never there to remind grisha, and when she did come home, she desired to do nothing but sink into the deep abyss of her bed.</p><p>grisha understood. he was a stay-at-home dad, and carla worked and still took care of eren. he knew he was pulling the easier weight around, and he didn't have any right to complain.</p><p>so he picked eren up, put him on the changing table, and discarded the stinky underwear.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. three years.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><br/>♡♡♡<br/><br/></p><p>"cookie?" asked eren, pointing to the jar.</p><p>"you've already had one, eren. it's time for your story with dada, so go upstairs." </p><p>eren's face scrunched up, reddening by the seconds. carla backed away, not even sure what to do when a kid was mid-tantrum. this was her first child, and although she went to multiple parenting classes about this, all the knowledge seemed to drift away as eren screamed.</p><p>if there was anything she should not do in this situation, it's giving eren the cookie. she repeated to herself, muttering, "don't give him the cookie."</p><p>he had his cookie already, and now it was time for him to read.</p><p>was she supposed to yell at him? she hated yelling, not even mentioning yelling at a <em>child</em> going through their tiresome threes. it didn't seem right to yell at him.</p><p>so she ignored him. she simply sat down on the couch and went through her phone, hoping that her gesture would make eren quiet down when he realizes she revoked her attention.</p><p>fortunately, for carla, eren's cries reduced to whimpers, to sour faces at her. she smiled.</p><p>"are you ready to go upstairs and start reading?"</p><p>eren frowned, nodding.</p><p>when carla could finally barricade eren into the room with his father, she sighed. eren was an angel at best, but it was like holding fifty halos and wings at once when it came to taking care of him.</p><p>she wondered how kuchel was handling levi. she previously declined carla's many offers to send money to her, and wouldn't tell carla at all how she was paying for levi's care. heck, though the numerous times they met up for coffee, kuchel had not uttered a word about her dead husband.</p><p>carla knew she was pushing kuchel, and kuchel would never forgive carla if she kept pestering her over something that she has made clearer than transparent she did not want to talk about.</p><p>she laughed to herself. "well, there is a price for everything. only the fools that are courageous enough to pay for it get the product, right?"</p><p>she called kuchel.</p><p>"hello?" kuchel mumbled.</p><p>"hey, kuch! how's levi doing?"</p><p>"sleeping."</p><p>carla giggled and pressed the phone closer to her ear.</p><p>"i've been thinking we should expose eren and levi to each other more often. they seem very wary of each other, and i personally believe that they should get used to seeing one another."</p><p>"sure! do you want me to pick you up, or..?" carla said, edging on to the very thing she wanted to see.</p><p>kuchel's voice went into a higher volume, and carla wished she could see kuchel's face at that moment. her body language. she wanted to read kuchel like her favorite book, turning each expressive page at a time.</p><p>"no, no, most definitely not! we'll meet you at the park again next week, okay?"</p><p>"i... eh, sure," carla said, hanging up.</p><p>as she put on her work clothes, she pondered about that change of atmosphere kuchel caused. the rushed tone, the hushed sound, it all was too suspicious for carla's liking. or, perhaps, this was purely just her examining situations to fit her own theories again.</p><p>carla liked to think kuchel and her were best friends. they had shared many extracurricular conversations, mostly about kuchel's little quirks in her life, like the litter of kittens that liked to run in her backyard, or the peculiar bird that always sits on the bus sign, not bothering to move despite everyone's banter about it.</p><p>carla liked to think kuchel told her everything. and now, she thought she should not distrust kuchel in any form until she reveals her hypothetical lie.</p><p>carla liked to think she was right.<br/><br/></p><p>♥♥♥<br/><br/></p><p>"what's your name?" kuchel asked levi, who was playing an interactive shapes game on kuchel's phone..</p><p>"lev," he said, not bothering to look up.</p><p>"no, no, that's your <em>nickname</em>. what's your <em>actual name</em>?"</p><p>"lev...i?"</p><p>"give me a high five!"</p><p>levi smiled at her and gave her a high five with all his strength. kuchel winced and waved her hand around before starting the game over again.</p><p>"now, can you tell me what your last name is?"</p><p>"asserman," levi deadpanned.</p><p>she stared at levi, not sure what she heard him say. "can you say it again?"</p><p>"ass... er... man!"</p><p>she cackled, throwing her head back and clapping her hands.</p><p>"no, levi! it's ackerman. can you say <em>ack</em>?"</p><p>"ass."</p><p>"levi, no!"<br/><br/></p><p>♥♥♥<br/><br/></p><p>levi pedaled on his tricycle, which was a gift from carla on his third birthday. chatting with his mother—which was more of a tangent of barely coherent words that he expected her to answer to, for kuchel—as they walked to the park to play with eren.</p><p>eren and levi were friends. sometimes, levi's mommy liked to say that eren was her friend, but that's weird. eren was <em>his</em> friend, not mommy's. mommy's friend is eren's mommy. mommies are always supposed to be friends!</p><p>"i spy... white!"</p><p>kuchel hummed and looked around.</p><p>"is it the clouds?"</p><p>levi shook his head and giggled. "nope!"</p><p>"is it the sidewalk?"</p><p>"nope!"</p><p>"is it... me?"</p><p>"no! it's my shirt!"</p><p>levi pedaled into the park, where carla and eren were waving at him. levi got off the tricycle and walked towards eren, holding his teacup car toy.</p><p>"hey, kuch!"</p><p>carla ran over to give kuchel a hug, basically squeezing her.</p><p>"i've been putting eren in some playgroups, and he's done so well!"</p><p>"it shows," kuchel said, looking at the two children. while they weren't really talking that much to each other, levi had clearly taken eren's toy, and eren didn't seem to have a problem with it.</p><p>"levi's such a sweet boy, i must say. always so quiet."</p><p>"that's just because we're outside! you should see him behind closed doors," kuchel said. "he talks more than i do."</p><p>"well, kids are kids, and kids aren't afraid to run their little blabber-holes."</p><p>"ain't that right!"<br/><br/></p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. four years.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><br/>♡♡♡♡<br/><br/></p><p>eren gripped the straps of his bright orange backpack tightly to his chest as his mommy walked him up to the classroom.</p><p>although it was his second week of preschool, he held this manipulative pouting face every time it was time for her to go, just to persuade her to let him go back home or give him a reward for his troubles.</p><p>"go play with levi, okay? you see him sitting over there?"</p><p>she bent down and pointed to levi, who was at the middle of the room, arms folded and looking down.</p><p>eren debated whether he should whine about this or simply hug his mommy and go to play with levi.</p><p>well, he didn't want his mommy to be mad. she didn't get mad at eren that many times, but when she did, it was scary.</p><p>very scary.</p><p>so eren said goodbye to carla and ran over to levi.</p><p>"hi, levi!"</p><p>"hi," he said.</p><p>"what are you doing?"</p><p>"playing with my tea toy!"</p><p>eren sat down in front of levi. "can i play with it?"</p><p>"uh, sure," levi said, passing the toy to him.</p><p>they passed the toy back and forth to each other, having some fun and even laughing while they made soft <em>vroom</em> sounds. their teacher clapped their hands three times and did a big wave. eren giggled at that. it was silly.</p><p>"good morning, kids!"</p><p>"good morning, miss kamiya," they all chanted, all pronouncing miss kamilla's name wrong. she smiled at everyone and smoothed down the dress she was wearing.</p><p>"it's discovery time, boys and girls. can anyone tell me what discovery is?"</p><p>levi raised his hand, but eren, sitting beside him on the carpet, blurted out the answer, yelling over the other kids who were talking.</p><p>"discovery is, um, it's when you discover something?"</p><p>"great job, eren! does anyone else know what discovery is?"</p><p>levi put down his hand, not even bothering to try to answer anymore. he played with his toy instead.</p><p>"discovery is when you find something," said a boy sitting behind levi.</p><p>"that's right, isabel! now, everyone get up..."</p><p>they all promptly stood up, some of them bumping into each other.</p><p>"sorry!" eren squeaked, almost knocking isabel down when he got up the wrong way.</p><p>"...and look around for things!" miss kamilla finished.</p><p>eren, being the sneaky detective he was, tiptoed around, and made his way to the box of buttons.</p><p>he slowly pulled out the bin and set it down on the carpet. but, judging by the buttons that were now scattered across the floor, he had pulled down too hard.</p><p>the kids went from making their own discoveries to watching eren's discovery.</p><p>"oh, eren," the teacher said, collecting all the buttons and putting them back. "you gotta be more careful next time, okay?"</p><p>"okay!" eren said, walking somewhere else. levi walked over to him.</p><p>"you made a big mess!"</p><p>"i did?" eren said.</p><p>"yeah! you made the buttons go everywhere!"</p><p>"shh," said some of the other kids, as the jungle music played.</p><p>"i'm sorry," eren said.</p><p>"it's okay."</p><p><br/>♥♥♥♥<br/><br/></p><p>levi and eren were having their first playdate. carla kept suggesting they have it over kuchel's house, seeing as eren was the more flexible one out of the two, but kuchel blatantly refused.</p><p>"i haven't cleaned up at all!" she said. "there are plenty hazardous things around that i don't want eren to choke on."</p><p>"i'm sure levi would choke on the same things that eren would," carla said with a smile.</p><p>"yeah, he would, but i can control him! i have no experience taking care of eren, and i can barely take care of levi. you don't want to leave your child in a potential murderer's hands, now would you?"</p><p>"i'm a potential murderer as well. playdates are, in general, unsafe. it's all a matter of trust."</p><p>"just drop it," kuchel said. "i'll be back in about three hours, okay, lev?" she said, pinching levi's cheeks.</p><p>he nodded.</p><p>going inside, eren was waiting in there with a small bowl in his hand and a billion things on the table.</p><p>"hi, levi! hehe, that rhymed."</p><p>"what rhymed?" asked levi, plopping down next to him.</p><p>"hi, levi."</p><p>"hi!"</p><p>eren stared at levi for a few seconds and then glanced at carla.</p><p>"we're going to make food for auntie carla, okay, levi?"</p><p>"auntie calwa? that's silly!" exclaimed eren, giggling. carla just sat levi down in a chair, gave him a bowl, and said, "pick anything, levi."</p><p>he stared at the things that were on the table, recognizing some of them, but he was sure they did <em>not</em> go in food.</p><p>"what's this?"</p><p>"that's pepper, sweetie," carla said to levi.</p><p>"pepper make it spicy!" eren said to levi, waving his hands around. he took the pepper from levi's side and put it in his bowl. levi peered at it and then looked back to carla.</p><p>there was nothing in it except pepper. how was this supposed to go?</p><p>eren was now giving the peppered bowl to his mommy, and she pretended to eat it, bowl and all. after she 'ate' it, she proceeded to tell eren that it was <em>very</em> good. she loved the dish as a whole. eren clapped his hands in delight and levi observed this moment with close detail.</p><p>he started putting more pepper in his bowl.</p><p><br/>♥♥♥♥<br/><br/></p><p>kuchel was stirring some rice on the stove, occasionally asking levi questions.</p><p>"what's my full name?" she said, putting a lid on it and turning the heat down. she walked over to the table and sat in front of levi, who was swinging his legs and lying his head on his arms.</p><p>"mommy asserman."</p><p>she sighed. "my <em>actual</em> name's not mommy, lev. it's kuchel."</p><p>"kushol? i never heard that before!"</p><p>"yes, my name is kushol asserman," she muttered to herself. the timer for the rice beeped and she went to go turn off the heat.</p><p>"the rice is ready?" he asked. he got up and peeked to look in the kitchen, and, indeed, it was! mommy took off the lid with a mitten and steam blew everywhere. levi followed it upwards with his eyes, but before he knew it, the smoke had faded away and kushol was now telling him to start eating the rice.</p><p>"blow on it, it's very hot," she said. "do you want bacon bits with it?"</p><p>"i'm fine."</p><p>she laughed at his response—toddlers really <em>are</em> just little humans and not babies anymore—and he blew on it a couple of times, holding his mouth really close to the rice. then, he put the forkful into his mouth.</p><p>it was way too soon. the rice burned the roof of his mouth, and yet, flavor stuck out from the pain.</p><p>levi made a harsh 'mmm!' sound and he moved his head back and forth. he liked it. he loved it! this rice was yummy. very yummy!</p><p>"do you like rice?"</p><p>"yeah."</p><p>levi continued to ask his mommy to make him rice ever since. and it was delicious every time.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. five years.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><br/>♡♡♡♡♡<br/><br/></p><p>going to any levi ackerman birthday party was an experience. mostly because it seemed like every year they never help them at the traditional spot for birthday parties; at home. instead, levi partied at the trash-infested park. the same one he went to almost every other week.</p><p>if you went to a levi ackerman birthday party for the first time, you would say that it was bland, unexciting, and the atmosphere was nothing short of stiff. mostly because there was absolutely nothing exclusive about his birthday parties.</p><p>"kuchel, you know, sometimes i wonder why levi has never had a birthday party at home," carla said, watching over eren, levi, and levi's two other friends have a tea party.</p><p>"he doesn't want to stay stuffed up at home when it's his <em>big day</em>. levi's just like that, y'know?"</p><p>"hm, sure."</p><p>her suspicions over the years had not decreased. instead, with every nervous laugh and rushed excuse she fed to carla like baby food, she could not help but feel hungrier. and she didn't want stupid baby food anymore.</p><p>she wanted a product that costed more than she had in her wallet. an answer she knew could risk their eight-year friendship.</p><p>levi poured them all imaginary tea, smiling at all of them.</p><p>"thanks, bro," said the girl with puffballs for hair that bobbled every time she moved.</p><p>"well, there is a price for everything. only the fools that are courageous enough to pay for it get the product, right?"</p><p>kuchel looked at carla, who was muttering these words under her breath.</p><p>"did you say something?"</p><p>"isn't it interesting," carla said with a click of her tongue, "that in the eight years that we have been declared sisters, i have not even seen the exterior of your home, and yet, you know the contents of my house more than you would ever admit?"</p><p>"<em>what</em> are you implying?" kuchel said, her gorgeous voice that was usually laced with cutesy pink ribbon and dandelions, now hissing out a poison carla had never tasted before.</p><p>carla merely smiled. she was getting closer to her product. she could feel its skin on her fingertips. a pretty lie that kuchel has fed, dressed and put to bed.</p><p>"simply making an observation. that's all."</p><p><br/>♥♥♥♥♥<br/><br/></p><p>levi wiggled into his trunks and a swim shirt, rambling excitedly to kuchel about the beach day that they were preparing for.</p><p>"are you ready for the waves?" she asked him as she unlocked their front door. her face was subtly cringing and her flip flops made harsh clapping sounds as she walked levi down to carla's car.</p><p>kuchel would've never agreed to go to the beach if it was <em>her</em> choice. carla's masked interrogation on levi's birthday and the horrible timing of it all had really gotten to kuchel, and the only thing she wanted right now was space. and time.</p><p>but eren and levi went to the same kindergarten. she saw carla every school day, not to mention their children being the best of friends. no matter how much of a stronghold kuchel had, levi always had the last word.</p><p>and levi wanted to go to the beach with eren. he wanted to build sandcastles, kick the waves, and splash eren and practically everyone that was within ten feet of him. levi wanted to have fun! and who was kuchel to tell him that he, a growing five-year-old, couldn't?</p><p>so, here she was, strapping levi into a booster seat, and riding shotgun.</p><p>"hey, kuch!" she said, adjusting her mirror.</p><p>"hi, carla. what beach are we headed to?"</p><p>"whichever one is closer!" she cackled.</p><p><br/>♥♥♥♥♥<br/><br/></p><p>"i'm sure it isn't that deep, carla. maybe her house is dirty," reasoned grisha as he sat eren down to go to sleep. carla ran her hands through her hair. "didn't she say once that there were all sorts of unsafe things around?"</p><p>"that doesn't make sense! if she's so worried about me, an adult, coming over just for ten minutes of talk time, then surely it means that there are <em>things</em> in there that even <em>she</em> shouldn't be near, not to mention her five year old kid!"</p><p>there was a long silence of grisha staring at carla, clearly unbelieving of what carla was saying.</p><p>finally, grisha tutted, shaking his head. "now why would you suggest something like that against your best friend? if anything, it should be<em> you</em> giving her the benefit of the doubt, not me."</p><p>"i would if i could. but i've been suspecting her for three damn years! if your best friend has never let you come to their house and always made up the worst excuses for it, wouldn't you be suspicious as well?"</p><p>"you think kuchel's excuses are bad because you're distrustful, carla."</p><p>carla turned around to face grisha. he shrugged and a timid smile overcame him. "i'm right, aren't i?"</p><p>she huffed, still not understanding that grisha wasn't agreeing with her on this, of all things.</p><p>"kuchel's 'excuses' could be true. she's a first-time mom, you know. couldn't afford all those parenting classes you got. she's not the best, and neither are you. you always say that kuchel is refusing your offers to give her money and resources, but i think you are forgetting that kuchel is a grown adult. only a few months younger than you. she can take care of what she needs to take care of with and without help, as she has done all these years."</p><p>"but she needs help!" carla argued, still refusing to see grisha's point. "she doesn't have a <em>job</em>, grisha. she doesn't even tell me where she gets the money!"</p><p>"and does she need to tell you? is it your business? are you kuchel ackerman? are you kuchel ackerman's mother?"</p><p>"no, but i'm her friend! her best friend, actually! and as her best fucking friend, she should not leave me worrying like this. it's not right, grisha! it's not <em>right!"</em></p><p>he sighed and got into the bed, pushing himself under the covers.</p><p>"i think we've reached that point in this discussion where you start sounding less like carla and more like eren."</p><p>so carla acted just like a five-year-old, and plomped on the edge of the bed, arms crossed, and glared at the painting on the wall.</p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0007"><h2>7. six years.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><br/>♡♡♡♡♡♡<br/><br/></p><p>kuchel wanted to cry.</p><p>she wanted to weep on her kitchen floor for two hours and stay in bed for the remainder of the day.</p><p>a churning feeling deep in her stomach exaggerated the sickly feeling crawling up her spine.</p><p>it all came from one word, one syllable. and yet, it made kuchel realize that levi was not her little baby anymore. she did not have to carry him everywhere; she didn't have to feed him baby food anymore, because he was independent enough to feed himself, and walk himself.</p><p>"mom? can you hel–"</p><p>"<em>mom</em>?" kuchel repeated incredulously. "i'm... mom?"</p><p>"can you help me with my homework?"</p><p>"yes, sure, as your <em>mom</em>, i will <em>help you</em> with your <em>homework,</em>" she said, trying to see if levi had actually meant to call her mom, and not mommy.</p><p>he just scooted over and showed the sheet to her, which made kuchel want to crumple and die.</p><p>she was so attached to the feeling of being someone's mommy. now, the actuality of having a child was catching up to her.</p><p>she was a middle-aged, broke, single mom living in the poorest district to exist. a middle-aged, broke, single mom that was participating in the most degrading acts to exist just for a kid that has now grown up.</p><p>"i'll, uh, i'll help you with your homework, lev." as if she hadn't declared that already.</p><p>"okay! um, so, hold up your hands."</p><p>levi held up his hands, holding them so close to his eyes they were covering them.</p><p>"now keep taking away fingers until you get to seven fingers. let's count."</p><p>he put down one finger.</p><p>"nine, eight, seven," he chanted.</p><p>"how many fingers did you put down?"</p><p>"seven?"</p><p>"no, you put down three. and what does that problem say?"</p><p>"ten minus three equals..."</p><p>"so what does it equal?" kuchel said with an edge of anticipation in her voice.</p><p>"seven!"</p><p>"good job, levi! now, keep doing those problems, okay, sweetie?"</p><p>he nodded and wrote a blocky <em>seven</em> in the underlined space. kuchel walked into the bedroom, shut the door, and laid down on the floor. looking at the ceiling, she tried her best to not let the rollerblades of reality run her over.</p><p>but, before she knew it, she felt the wheels gliding over her chest. she felt her actions creeping up towards her ears, whispering the deeds she had done in exchange for a living.</p><p>she felt the harshness of a middle-aged, broke, single mom embracing her. squeezing her into their arms like one of their own.</p><p>she felt like a middle-aged, broke, single mom.</p><p><br/>♥♥♥♥♥♥<br/><br/></p><p>if you have been to a levi ackerman birthday party, you would probably think that anything remotely associated with 'levi ackerman' is, nine times out of ten, uneventful. and, if you do think that, you're right. most of the time.</p><p>recently, there's been another thing that correlates to levi ackerman's name. something that isn't run by one struggling adult and her overprotective best friend. something that was run by levi ackerman, and levi ackerman only. something that was actually fun, and yet, had no money involved!</p><p>it seems like a first grader's dream, right? so where exactly where this paradise located? was it out-of-country? was it in europe? or france?</p><p>actually, it was right in his school's cafeteria. and it was nowhere else except the grand location of his lunch table.</p><p>"spell icup, farlan," eren said with a smile. elbows on the table and head on his hands, he awaited farlan's response.</p><p>"i cee you pee... wait a second."</p><p><br/>♥♥♥♥♥♥<br/><br/></p><p>"snack time, everybody!" said their teacher. eren clapped with the other kids.</p><p>"table one, if you have food in your locker you want to eat, go get it," she called. she continued calling the tables row by row, and eren waited patiently and shushed his tablemates so they wouldn't be held back.</p><p>"table five, if you have food in your locker you want to eat, go get it."</p><p>eren jumped out of his seat and ran out of the door, opened his locker, and pulled out a small, oval-shaped metal bowl.</p><p>opening the lid for a bit, he smelled the strong pasta aroma that felt like heaven to him. he then sped back into the classroom and placed it on his desk.</p><p>but, just as he was about to dig in, he felt the need to pee.</p><p>"uh, mrs. sullivan?" eren said, with his hand up. she nodded towards him.</p><p>"can i go to the bathroom?"</p><p>"take a pass," she said.</p><p>eren got out his seat and went out the classroom, hoping that he could relieve himself quick enough to finish his pasta in time.</p><p>with eren gone, levi and farlan looked at each other for five seconds and then back at the pasta.</p><p>"do you wanna put a shoelace in it?" levi said, still looking at the thermos container it was in.</p><p>"sure, but why?"</p><p>"i wanna see if eren would eat it," he said, untying his shoes to get the shoelace off.</p><p>"how are you gonna get new shoelaces?"</p><p>levi shrugged and slipped the slim thread inside of it. levi shook it up a bit and peeked inside, seeing that what once was white was now yellow. he smiled and closed the container.</p><p>as they waited for eren to come back, levi ate some of his rice, trying his best not to look suspicious.</p><p>eren skipped in, rushing to get back in his seat.</p><p>as much as levi tried to look inconspicuous, he couldn't help but lean over when eren started eating.</p><p>with a few bites, eren started to chew erratically, biting up and down. levi and farlan shared one glance at each other and then started to snicker.</p><p>eren looked at them and then realized what was happening. "bleh! bleh! bleh!"</p><p>eren took the stringy material off his tongue and glared at both farlan and levi.</p><p>"i'm telling the teacher."</p><p>"wait, no!"</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. seven years.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><br/>♡♡♡♡♡♡♡<br/><br/></p><p>with all changes of becoming a second-grader, like no longer having to use a booster seat or sit in the shopping cart, eren wanted to try new things.</p><p>his legs had gotten longer, his feet bigger. while going through all his clothing, carla had accumulated an amount of clothing that had to be given away that nobody expected. it was the first time in months that eren had to go clothes shopping.</p><p>in most children, this meant picking up a sport. track, for example—which he, in fact, tried, and was fairly good at. the coach had called him a 'natural that needs a little carving'.</p><p>he doesn't know what that means, but it sounded good!</p><p>it all changed the day that levi told him about a theater camp he wanted to go to over the summer, along with his extracurricular classes he was taking.</p><p>"it's very cool! my mom went when she was younger," he said.</p><p>so, on that same day, during dinner, eren was the one that started the conversation.</p><p>"can i join a theater class?" he said, taking a forkful of pasta. grisha and carla blinked.</p><p>"a theater class? you like theater?"</p><p>"i want to practice it," he said plainly.</p><p>"well, if it's something you want to do, we can try our best to provide," carla said, whipping out her phone, typing rapidly.</p><p>"don't you like track though, eren?" grisha asked.</p><p>"who says he can't do both?"</p><p>"i mean, of course, he could do both, for right now. we know that homework and school only get more stressful as he goes by the grades. he can't do both track and theater forever. he'll suffocate himself."</p><p>"he's just a second-grader, grisha, lighten up. you think about the future too much," she said with a chortle. then, as she clicked on something, she started to frown.</p><p>"there's a theater class i could sign you up for, but they meet up on the same days of track practice."</p><p>"aren't there any others?"</p><p>"i mean, this is the biggest organization there is in this city. they have performed on actual concert halls. i could try to find another, but i bet they'll be limited in resources and extremely far away."</p><p>grisha sighed. "well, this means there's a decision for you to make, eren."</p><p>"huh?"</p><p>"track practice or drama practice?"</p><p>eren looked at the two of them, seeing entirely different opinions written on their foreheads, yet their tight-lipped smiles were all the same.</p><p>carla didn't care for track, that much was clear. she always loved to talk about the cinderella play she starred in when she was in middle school, and how she took the lead role. she had a hidden passion for the arts, but it seemed like this one little dinner conversation unveiled it.</p><p>grisha saw eren as himself. doing all the things he wishes he could've done when he was younger. he wanted to push eren into his little fantasies of being a second grader, a youth. focusing on sports rather than grades. being ruthless, bold, carefree. he wanted eren to enjoy it while he was still young, but, the problem was, eren didn't know if this was a thing he <em>could</em> enjoy.</p><p>if there was any cliched musical full with unrealistic scenarios and a likely unlikely pair that could relate the most to eren's dilemma, it would, sadly, be <em>high school musical</em>.</p><p>this did not cheer up eren not one bit.</p><p>eren pursed his lips. he remembered how proud grisha got whenever he ran, and how grisha would put money in his college savings every time he got a new medal.</p><p>he remembered how grisha would always ramble on and on about his speed compared to his opponents and the quiet dinner table would be, temporarily, filled with buzzing laughter.</p><p>eren wasn't sure if he liked track or not, but he liked that the coach liked him playing track and that his father liked him playing track as well. and he wasn't sure if he was ready to give that up.</p><p>"i guess i'll just stick to track," eren muttered and shoved pasta inside his mouth.</p><p>for the first time, the pasta did not taste that good. it brought a nasty feeling to his stomach, rising all the way to his throat. he did not finish his plate of pasta that night and instead went to bed right after.</p><p>eren now despises pasta.</p><p><br/>♥♥♥♥♥♥♥<br/><br/></p><p>the upcoming saturday, carla had stolen eren away and took him to do what she called 'mother-son bonding parties', which was just her excuse to rant about her husband to her seven-year-old kid.</p><p>during these events, carla treated eren as more of an old friend rather than a son. eren didn't realize how damaging this could be to the natural way of emotional development and instead focused on the fact that he was getting milkshakes.</p><p>eren didn't understand a thing she was talking about, but it seemed that everything she talked about translated to eren's fault in some fashion.</p><p>after three bonding parties of this sort, eren told his mother about the thoughts he had been having about the entire situation, to which she replied with, "oh, no, sweetie, none of it is your fault. you're being too hard on yourself. all seven year olds are hard on themselves."</p><p>"you know, you can quit track if you want to. don't let your dad fool you."</p><p>eren looked up. choosing to stay quiet, he sipped out of his double chocolate chunk milkshake and sighed. it was the best milkshake he had in his entire life, and frankly, it was the only thing he wanted to focus on right now. not track or practicing drama.</p><p>eren had heard the word 'drama' before, and it always meant nothing good. maybe it was better to stick to running.</p><p>"i know, he gets all happy and whatever whenever you run on that stupid field your school has. but doesn't that happy pride you get whenever you win slowly fade into dread and an unhealthy obligation to always win? doesn't it always feel like you're going to drown every time you start running because you feel like you <em>have</em> to make your dad proud?"</p><p>eren was fleeing from answering her questions faster than he could ever run. he simply sipped loudly out of his cup and then said, "why do you call it stupid?"</p><p>"oh, no reason in particular. the idea of masculinity and sports being correlated is, and of itself, stupid. i bet that's why your dad doesn't want you doing theater."</p><p>"dad wasn't mad, though," eren said. "he didn't look mad because i wanted to do it."</p><p>"you don't know your dad well enough. if you were to take theater classes, he'd secretly hate you to the end of time. he's stubborn like that. so am i, in a sense."</p><p>carla smiled. she was wrong, and she knew it. grisha wouldn't care if eren wanted to take theater classes.</p><p>she wanted eren to pick a side. between her and grisha. she wanted eren to decide which one of them was his favorite, because, in the end, no matter what, it would be her.</p><p>for some reason, deep in her heart, she also wanted eren to answer just to resolve her crumbling feelings towards her own husband.</p><p><br/>♥♥♥♥♥♥♥<br/><br/></p><p>eren and levi were standing outside of their school, waiting for their respective parents to come pick them up. teachers were long gone, already making their way home.</p><p>they were surrounded by groups of kids that were much bigger than they were and were loudly chatting, their laughter ringing in levi's ears.</p><p>levi hated big crowds. small crowds, too. levi hated... crowds.</p><p>but, levi hated people in general. his mom had said he was too young to have an opinion on society, but he had already formed it when he witnessed one of the most degrading actions ever.</p><p>a group of eighth-grade girls was talking about whatever it was that eighth-graders talk about, which involved whispering at times and then screaming at times. in the middle of one girl applying her candy-flavored lip balm to her lips, they all had gone quiet.</p><p>a white vehicle that could probably hold five people, at best, pulled up to the school's driveway, and its driver rolled down the windows, revealing a signature 'pretty boy', looking at the girls with such twinkling eyes. he clearly was too old to go to this school, so what was he doing here? was he picking someone up?</p><p>he got out the car and sat on the hood, which made eren and levi look at each other, confirming that they were seeing the same thing.</p><p>one eighth-grader walked forward and sat next to him, sitting way too close for comfort.</p><p>that's when it clicked in his mind.</p><p>"look away, eren," he said, shielding his eyes.</p><p>"what?"</p><p>"you're too young!"</p><p>"i'm older than you?"</p><p>still, levi wouldn't budge. he kept his eyes placed firmly at the two kids, who were definitely doing exactly what levi thought they were going to do. he gagged.</p><p>the girl's friends did not stop the boy, which irritated levi further. instead, they snickered and got into his car.</p><p>a few moments later, the two got a visible need for something that weren't just flimsy hands, so they got into the car and drove off. levi blew raspberries at them a they went and removed his hands.</p><p>"nasty! now my day's all messed up," he grumbled.</p><p>kuchel and grisha had arrived mere moments after, and eren and levi did not tell them what had happened, but by the look on levi's face, kuchel knew he had seen something that he could've went decades without seeing.</p><p>she didn't question him about it.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. eight years.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡<br/><br/></p><p>second grade to third grade was a leap too distant for levi's legs, much to the contrary of eren. he struggled to do multiplication, cursive, <em>and</em> write grammatically correct sentences. somewhere along the way, levi started taking naps right after school.</p><p>one night, however, shook him to the bone so violently that he did not want to sleep after school anymore.</p><p>waking up from a dreamless sleep, levi sighed and stretched out, falling off the couch.</p><p>"ouch!" he exclaimed. he got up and rubbed his head.</p><p>there was an odd silence to the house. the only noise was his. usually, he'd wake up to find his mom in the kitchen, preparing dinner, or in her room, rummaging for something, or maybe even sitting right next to him while reading a book.</p><p>so levi searched all around the house, which wasn't much, seeing as their house only had one story and was fairly small.</p><p>having a small house had its pros, as well as its cons. less room to clean, its more homey, and its harder to lose things, which is why levi was so confused now. where could his mom possibly disappear?</p><p>"mom? mom?" he called, walking into different rooms.</p><p>there was no callback. only the creaking of the floorboards beneath him.</p><p>he sighed and sat down on the floor. he was, clearly, home alone. and it was late at night.</p><p>everything scary was happening to him at once.</p><p>there was no note left for him. she left without a word.</p><p>so levi, being a third-grader, cried on the hardwood floor until it was twelve at night, the slow tears finding themselves on the ground. and when he had finally decided he did not want to cry anymore, he still felt horrible and frightened of everything around him.</p><p>he ran around, searching for a telephone of any kind. at times like these, levi was happy he had both memorized his mom's number, and eren's mom's number.</p><p>there was no phone at all. no piece of electricity that levi could pick up and ask for help from.</p><p>so he cried until it was one in the morning, and decided to do what he had learned in one of the school assemblies. he never thought that information like that would come in handy.</p><p>he unlocked the door and ran to his neighbor's house, banging on the door so loudly that he must've wakened up everyone in the neighborhood.</p><p>it was a two-minute wait until levi heard some sleepy yelling and a silence.</p><p>a sleepy old woman in a nightgown and a headscarf that was partially falling off, revealing her hair tied up in rollers, opened the door with a yawn.</p><p>"who're you?"</p><p>"i'm levi ackerman, i live next door."</p><p>she took another deep yawn and rubbed her eyes, this time taking a good look at the boy.</p><p>"it's one at night, sugar pie. what're you doing here?"</p><p>levi smiled. he was expecting his neighbor to be scary, and tall, and probably a registered sex offender, but it turned out to be quite the contrary. she seemed to be one of those nice, old ladies that always give you a peppermint out of their purse.</p><p>"my mom isn't home, and i'm eight," levi said, as if his height and his boyish face didn't tell his age for him, "there's no phone at home. can i use yours?"</p><p>"of course. just wait here a second."</p><p>she closed the door in his face and yelled some more. there was loud thumps of someone walking down a staircase, some muttering, more thumps, and she opened the door again.</p><p>"here you go, baby. do you know her phone number?"</p><p>"yes. thank you, miss..."</p><p>"smith. ms. smith," she finished for him. "now, you know this a bad neighborhood, child. don't you go looking for help just anywhere, okay? i'm happy you went here."</p><p>levi nodded and began dialing his mom, holding the phone up to his ear.</p><p>there were three extended rings, until her voicemail began.</p><p>"you have reached kuchel ackerman, but i don't seem to be here right now. please leave a message at the beep," her voice said. levi hung up and tried again.</p><p>beep. beep. beep.</p><p>"you have reached kuchel ackerman, but i don't see-"</p><p>the grandma watched levi continually dialing the same number, before she sighed.</p><p>"your mom not picking up? you have any other numbers?"</p><p>"yeah, i know my best friend's mother's number..." he murmured, dialing carla.</p><p>there were only two rings this time.</p><p>"hello? who's this?"</p><p>"uh, mrs. jaeger?" he said, slightly squeaking.</p><p>"levi? what do you need? why are you calling on a different phone?"</p><p>"i, um, my mom left me at home, alone."</p><p>"she did what?" carla said, a twist in her voice. "did she say anything before she left?"</p><p>"no, i was... i was sleeping, and when i woke up, she was gone."</p><p>"oh, gosh... uh, where are you now?" she asked, her voice slightly cut off as she ran to wherever she was going.</p><p>"at my next-door neighbor's."</p><p>"can i speak to them?"</p><p>levi hummed and handed the phone back to the grandmother. she chuckled a bit and opened her door wide enough to let levi in.</p><p>the house smelled very different than what levi was used to. it reminded levi of all the plain fruits he liked; bananas, apples, maybe even grapes. and, somewhere in there, it was like a rosy forest twisted itself into her house.</p><p>"sit anywhere you'd like. i'll call down marie to get you some tea. how do you like it?"</p><p>"black," remembering how kuchel always had hers. levi, personally, had never drunk tea before. still holding the phone to her hand, ms. smith went upstairs and yelled for this person named 'marie' to come downstairs.</p><p>a young lady with brown locks that went all the way down to her stomach stomped downstairs, wearing nothing but tennis shorts and a white tee.</p><p>"what, mama?" she said, with a deep voice that petrified levi. everyone in this household was surprising her.</p><p>"give this young man some tea, now could you?" she said. marie looked pointedly at levi, and nodded.</p><p>walking into the kitchen, the sound of turning the stove on and running water soon came and went. then, marie walked into the living room and sat diagonally from where levi was sitting.</p><p>"you don't need t'be so awkward, you know. mama don't care how you sit on her couch. just don't get marker on it, 'cause that takes forever to get out."</p><p>she showed exactly this by putting her feet on the couch, socks and all. levi didn't budge.</p><p>"i thought that ms. smith was a grandma?" he blurted out, cursing himself right after he said it. he knew it sounded rude, but marie just laughed.</p><p>"she <em>is</em>. my baby upstairs. just about the same size as you, actually. how old's you?"</p><p>"uh, eight," he said, fidgeting with his hands. she shook her head and made a small disapproving sound.</p><p>"too young. i would've never left my child at home."</p><p>by then, the tea was finished and levi started sipping on it. very bitter, but in some way, it was sort of like him.</p><p>he couldn't believe he was actually relating himself to tea right now, but he liked it anyway. he finished about half the cup while idly chatting with marie, who turned out to be a psychology major fresh out of college, currently working in laboratories.</p><p>"one of the only black ladies in that lab, y'know? there's another one, her name's crissie, but she don't work in the same unit as i do," she said.</p><p>she started talking about her child's father, and to levi's surprise, she wasn't with him anymore. her baby daddy ran off with another lady, but she smiled while telling the story. it seemed like she truly did not care about her boyfriend, but as she described him, the things he did, and the trouble he got her into, levi stopped caring too.</p><p>by now, while walking through the story of why she got her locks, there was a knock at the door.</p><p>"marie, can you get that?" ms. smith said.</p><p>"yeah, mama," she said, getting up from the couch and opening the door. levi got up as well.</p><p>"hi, this is carla jaeger? i'm here to pick up levi."</p><p>marie looked suspiciously at carla and then looked to levi. "is this who was supposed to pick you up?"</p><p>"yeah, this is eren's mom. thanks, marie. tell ms. smith i said goodbye."</p><p>she nodded. "now, you come over soon for tea, you hear me? i ain't finished with all my stories. and next time, bring that mother of yours. i got something to say to her."</p><p>"definitely," levi said, nodding with a smile. "i'll come over soon, okay?"</p><p>"you better!"<br/><br/></p><p>♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥</p><p><br/>carla banged on the door forcefully, her face mushed together like a tight string as she held levi's hand at the doorway.</p><p>kuchel opened the door, her hair messy and clothes dangling off. she looked like she was falling apart by the thread, but once she looked down and saw levi standing right next to carla, she smiled.</p><p>"lev!" she exclaimed, opening the door and holding out her arms for a hug. levi squeezed her tightly, but carla stood there, her expression not wavering.</p><p>"what the fuck were you thinking, kuch?"</p><p>"don't use that foul language around a child," she muttered, hurrying levi inside. then, she walked out to talk to carla.</p><p>"well, i'm sorry that i couldn't <em>withhold</em> my tongue after you left a helpless eight-year-old by himself!"</p><p>"i had something i had to do, okay? i knew levi wouldn't get himself killed. he's my eight-year-old boy, and he knows what to do."</p><p>"it doesn't matter how he was raised, kuchel! leaving an eight-year-old at home by himself is fucking <em>child neglect! </em>you could go to jail for that!"</p><p>"it's none of your business, m'kay? thanks for taking care of him overnight."</p><p>she went to close the door, but carla stopped her, still fuming.</p><p>"what were you doing that was critical to the point of you putting your only kid in danger? where did you have to go to on such short notice that you couldn't even call me or anybody to come pick him up?"</p><p>"is this really what you wanted to know this entire time? for all these years, you've pushed me to tell you this?"</p><p>"yes! we've been friends since forever! who <em>wouldn't </em>tell their friend where they worked?"</p><p>"i'm a prostitute," she said blankly. carla stared at her.</p><p>"at night, i strut <em>up</em> and <em>down</em> the streets, wearing little-to-none clothes, and ask people in cars if they want a fun time. sometimes, i have to leave abruptly, because of a policeman looking inside my house for me. so, if i am going to jail for child neglect, better make it for prostitution too."</p><p>she slammed the door in her face. with one glance at levi, who was not far and most likely heard the entire argument, she sighed and went into the kitchen to begin making breakfast.<br/><br/></p><p>♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥<br/><br/></p><p>"i want legal guardianship of levi," said marie one day, sitting on kuchel's couch.</p><p>"excuse me?"</p><p>"i want legal guardianship of levi."</p><p>kuchel looked to marie, then to ms. smith, and then at levi. "if this about that day, then–"</p><p>"this is <em>about</em> you neglecting yo' child. nothing more, nothin' less."</p><p>marie grinned politely at kuchel and crossed her legs. ms. smith did nothing but shake her head every time she looked at kuchel. every time she did this, levi saw that his mom got angrier, but held it under a smile.</p><p>he saw how kuchel scrutinized every part of marie, from her septum piercing to her beanie. and, he also noticed how marie, with the little movement she was doing, was basically holding herself above kuchel. she was making herself seem superior. and he saw how motherly little ms. smith went into the kitchen and started to make pancakes.</p><p>"miss ackerman, how old is you?" ms. smith called, as she lifted something to the stove.</p><p>"and how does that tie into what we're talking about?"</p><p>"because a young woman like you shouldn't be runnin' the streets like that. hustling with every chance you get."</p><p>kuchel's eyes widened and her hands came up to her eyes. "now, my profession doesn't mean anything to you."</p><p>"it sure do mean a lot to them rich old white men down the road!" ms. smith hollered with a chuckle. "now, little girl, you know what the people across the street call you? you know what they whisper with every turn you make?"</p><p>kuchel stood silent. levi didn't know who to root for. he hadn't told marie and ms. smith to come over, but now that they had, he wouldn't exactly tell them to<em> leave</em>, now would he? honestly, the entire thing was not a big deal to him.</p><p>but on second thought, most things to him seemed to be far away, like a cloud he could not reach. they all seemed unimportant. even himself, at times. sometimes he felt that he was not living in his own body.</p><p>but, thoughts like those only triggered sadness, so sometimes, levi just stopped thinking.</p><p>ms. smith grabbed a plate and served the pancakes, before walking towards kuchel.</p><p>"my daughter right here, marie, she gon' be a science teacher. she 'bout the same age as you. got a kid just like you do. ain't no difference except the color of her skin," she said. "and yet, with all the white privilege you got, you can't make a living like she do without it being illegal? you ain't gon' take advantage of all the shit handed to you?"</p><p>there was a steady silence, and then kuchel coughed and cleared her throat.</p><p>"get out of my house."</p><p>"what?"</p><p>"get out of my house!"</p><p>ms. smith muttered something to marie and they said their goodbyes to levi, before taking one glance at kuchel and leaving.</p><p>once the door shut, kuchel looked at levi, trying to see his opinion on it just from his expression.</p><p>she couldn't see anything. because at that moment, levi had stopped thinking.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. nine years.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><br/>♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡<br/><br/></p><p>eren started getting these extremely weird feelings for his classmates. two in particular, mostly.</p><p>he didn't bother about it much. he presumed that with puberty, came the longing to embrace one person until the sun falls and rises, regardless of gender.</p><p>in fourth grade, two kids from neighboring cities transferred to his school. they seemed close, but both friendly by themselves.</p><p>during lunch, the two kids approached eren, levi, and farlan. the three were easily the ones making the most noise, but it was mainly just eren and farlan making loud reactions to the story levi was telling them.</p><p>"so, what i'm gathering from this is that you came over my house at midnight and did not even bother to wake me up?"</p><p>"yeah! you should've spray-painted over his face or something," farlan added. levi scoffed.</p><p>"eren, you were snoring louder than anyone else in the house. when i was walking in, i thought a billion other kids were sleeping too."</p><p>"oh, shut up! i was having a deep sleep!"</p><p>"so, is marie your guardian now?" asked the girl who had sat herself right next to eren, while the boy sat across from him.</p><p>"who are you?"</p><p>"mikasa. we're new here," she said firmly.</p><p>"oh, that's cool," eren said with a smile. "who are you?"</p><p>"armin."</p><p>they stared at each other for five moments, before levi cleared his throat and said, "to answer your question, i don't know. my mom won't answer me whenever i ask about it, and marie is always like, 'we'll see what happens.'"</p><p>"maybe they're in a legal battle as we speak," armin said. "your mom's mad about the entire thing, and marie is just hoping for results. if your mom loses, well, you'll see the changes soon enough," he murmured.</p><p>"what does that mean?"</p><p>"when i was reading some of my grandfather's books, it said that legal guardians have custody over you and everything. so, if your mom loses the case, you'll probably not see her as much anymore."</p><p>levi groaned and rubbed his eyes. "what am i supposed to do?"</p><p>"nothing. it's not your battle, it's a battle for <em>you</em>. whatever you say won't really matter, unless you come out with something like child abuse. just sit back and relax for the most part."</p><p>levi kicked his feet under the table and took a bite of the cold grilled cheese sandwich. mikasa began idly chatting with eren, but all he could do was look at the two of them, and shrivel up inside.</p><p>the worst part about it was the fact that eren liked both of them. he couldn't decide which one he liked more.</p><p>that night, he had dreams of hugging mikasa and holding hands with armin. nothing more, nothing less.<br/><br/></p><p>♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥<br/><br/></p><p>eren's feelings did not lose its touch after the modernity of armin and mikasa's arrival wore off. much to the contrary, they blossomed. eren recognized and acknowledged them.</p><p>with every movement mikasa made, or every time armin looked at him, eren felt like he was soaring. he was gliding over the mountains, over the clouds, to paradise. lavender roses bloomed at the pit of eren's stomach and were fed and watered by armin's smiles, and mikasa's sentences.</p><p>he loved the way that mikasa wrote. he wanted to make her handwriting his own. he wanted to directly copy every <em>o</em> she wrote, he wanted to put one of her written sentences in a frame. he wanted to mail her cursive letters to an art gallery.</p><p>his crush on mikasa was normalized. a girl crush. it's something that just about everyone has as they grow up, and even better yet, some people get <em>married</em> to their girl crushes.</p><p>yet, the thing that was bothering him the most was his unwavering affection for her best friend, as well. he had never heard of someone having two crushes at once.</p><p>armin had recently started wearing oval-shaped clear glasses whenever he read, and, as if eren did not already find every blurry thing about him breathtakingly <em>stunning</em>, it enhanced the experience. sometimes, eren found himself wishing that he could know the thousands of incoherent thoughts that ran in and out through armin's head in seconds, the little sentiments he had that passed like dandelion petals in the wind.</p><p>sometimes, eren wished he could run his hand through sections and rows of armin's honey-blond hair, to see the secrets that lied within.</p><p>he wanted to see armin's truth that slept peacefully behind those sleepy eyelids.</p><p><br/>♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥</p><p><br/>"who wants to play the stage directions game?" asked their coach with a clap, whoops following her sound.</p><p>the crew followed her to the corner, where stage directions were all labeled.</p><p>"who wants to go first?"</p><p>levi raised his hand. he had practiced his stage directions at home and was more than ready to blow everyone else out of his league.</p><p>"you first, levi! you will enter center stage."</p><p>levi stood in the center, and a few clapped. "hold your applause!"</p><p>"now, stride to upstage left."</p><p>the acting coach loved using words like <em>saunter</em> and <em>wander</em> instead of 'walk,' which was basically her way of saying, "walk with expression."</p><p>"if you were on stage, and it's your cue to start walking to stage center, you can't just walk like how we normally walk. you have to do it <em>dramatically</em> because this is a drama class, not a regular class!" she said once, </p><p>so levi held his head up high and cat-walked to upstage left. she whooped.</p><p>"what a performer! loving those movements. okay, now, stumble to downstage center."</p><p>levi purposely made himself almost trip, walking with steady wariness. she cheered once more.</p><p>"work it, levi! okay, okay, now say your mantra to the wall. loud and clear."</p><p>he took a deep breath and focused on the wall, and spoke his mantra with a solid, yet squeaky, voice.</p><p>"i am an artist! when i am on stage, i am superhuman! my mind is sharp, my voice is clear, and my body is full of energy!"</p><p>claps surrounded the room, and he bowed.</p><p>"now exist downstage, performer."</p><p>walking downstage, he went to stand where the others were, and some of them gave him a high five.</p><p>"now that was exactly what we, as performers, should strive for! unwavering confidence that can change in seconds, the excitement that quickly turns into dullness. we should be able to portray our full emotions in minutes, moments, seconds! we should get our entire statement across with one strut."</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. ten years.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡</p><p><br/>kuchel ackerman was sicker than she'd ever let on. she was sicker than she ever could understand.</p><p>marie smith, who had once only had physical custody of levi ackerman, was granted legal custody of him on kuchel ackerman's deathbed. levi ackerman was officially her child.</p><p>kuchel had died with giddy movement. twitched for a few moments then suddenly got still. died with her eyes open, her mouth agape. she died as if shocked of what was to come.</p><p>marie had watched her die. she laid forget-me-not petals around her boy and lit her favorite candles. she sat by her side and blessed her soul with every moment that passed by, with every choked breath kuchel took.</p><p>and when levi showed up at the door, waving goodbye to eren and thanking carla for the ride, he did not expect that he would walk in his mom's house—which he visited every day after school since she had fallen sick—to see his guardian sobbing over the body of his mother.</p><p>months of optimism and disbelief that this day would occur streamed out of him like a waterfall, horror and utter blankness replacing that space.</p><p>it was a fairly calm day. levi wished that it wasn't.</p><p>earthquakes reigned overhead, tearing his mental house and everything near to shreds. the ground shook with such intensity that he lost his balance.</p><p>he was falling from the sky, the wind rippling at his clothes. he was going to puke. he was going to die.</p><p>his stomach groaned and cried, wailing louder than levi wanted to. his heart had escaped from its place in his stomach and climbed its way up to his throat, jumping out of his mouth. his heart was falling. he was going to die.</p><p>the force of water that hit his back stung him like falling on hard cement, and he plunged downward. air bubbles from his mouth floated out of him like fairies. he was drowning. he was going to die.</p><p>it was a fairly calm day. levi assured himself that it wasn't.</p><p>levi slumped down unto the floor, hysterical sobs filling the room. silent recollections of his mother's laugh, his mother's smile, his mother's teachings... they hit him like bullets. like dodgeballs that never failed to miss.</p><p>when levi recognized that he would never notice those things again, he floated back out of reality.</p><p>he was living on earth with no form of life. floating in a solar system without stars. there was nothing except the nonexistence of the human world welcoming him.</p><p>he did not bring himself to stare into his mother's eyes as marie had done. he stayed at the doorway, weeping, not saying a word to marie.</p><p>levi fell asleep shortly after.<br/><br/></p><p>♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥<br/><br/></p><p>levi hated funerals.</p><p>when his distant cousin passed away, he went to one with his mother. and he absolutely hated it.</p><p>he hated how the stench of dead skin cells went unnoticed around the entire room. he hated how the exterior of the building was always a plain beige, how there was nothing noticeably special about the program at all except for the body in the middle of the room.</p><p>he hated how the very people who refused to help kuchel with her financial situation, the greedy rich ones who loved to sit on their high thrones and insult their peers, felt the need to sob their voices down the drain at a funeral.</p><p>he knew that the one who was lying in the casket, the one who lost their breath of life, would never want them to be remembered in such a situation. they would never want someone to fake their grief for them.</p><p>so, at kuchel's funeral, when he heard the choked sob of a cousin who was sitting behind him that he had never formally spoken to, fury boiled over his feelings of desolation.</p><p>and when her beautiful face was covered for the last time, levi knew he would never see his mother again.</p><p>he hated funerals more. this time, his hostility was targeted towards the mortician who had failed to ask levi at all what she would look like. they had taken it into their own hands to stuff plastic under her eyelids, and sew her mouth shut.</p><p>they had chosen to dress her up as an adorable little lady and put her in a chic black dress. they did not ask levi at all if his mother even <em>liked</em> dresses.</p><p>they put that ghastly retro blue eyeshadow on her, they made her a pretty girl. eren called it 'pageantry.'</p><p>kuchel hated pageantry.</p><p>soon enough, carla's opening words passed and it was levi's expected turn to say something for his mother. to represent her better than the pageant queens that dared to cry by her casket.</p><p>levi walked up the steps to the microphone, clearing his throat.</p><p>"i, um," he said, his voice already breaking. "i'm levi ackerman, her only son, her only family after my dad died. i'm eleven."</p><p>high-pitched sniffles rang over his voice. he gritted his teeth, loose tears falling down from his face.</p><p>how could they?</p><p>levi wiped his face with his sleeve and coughed.</p><p>"she was... uh, she was my only confidant, you know? it's like that with single parents. you cling so tightly to them that when they pass, you... you don't know what to do."</p><p>some people nodded in agreement, wiping their noses, which only made him angrier.</p><p>they couldn't relate to his pain. this wasn't their pain to <em>relate</em> to. this was his burden, his consequence that comes along with holding on to the memories you had with someone once before. he did not want to share this consequence, this <em>pain</em> with them, if that meant that they would share the same experiences as levi.</p><p>but, for once, he looked past his relatives and towards his friends. towards a smiling carla jaeger with tears running down her cheeks, and his best friend, eren jaeger, who looked very solemn and was grasping his mother's hand.</p><p>armin arlert and his grandfather sat one aisle behind them, grinning amiably at levi. next to them, farlan church sat with his hands folded and was glancing around wildly.</p><p>he decided that he was making this speech for the friends of kuchel ackerman who had decided to come out of their own courtesy, and not the relatives who were expected to come.</p><p>"if there was anything my mom wasn't exceptionally horrible at, well, it was expressing her emotions. you knew what she was thinking at any particular moment, no matter what. you knew when she was sarcastic and you knew when she was genuine. and well, if you knew kuchel, she was mostly sarcastic," he said with a chuckle, then sniffed.</p><p>"but the moments where she showed nothing but emotion, <em>raw emotion</em>, those moments stick to me. they comfort me when she's not even there. i can't count the many times i've gotten upset over certain things and i heard a little voice whispering in my ear, 'hey levi, maybe it's time to take a five-minute break from life. to space out for a while.' and, for some reason, it was always her voice.</p><p>"i hadn't always had such a passion for theater. it was my mom who liked it so much, and she... left from right, she was singing some song from a musical. some songs from a play. she got me so intrigued with it, with her voice, her<em> sound</em>, and, um, one day, she was singing a song that she had never sung before, or merely even mentioned. it was unknown to me. and somehow, by the effortless passion she sung it in, you knew it was her favorite song. and recently? it's become mine, as well."</p><p>levi, for once, let a few tears glide by, and let his throat get clogged up.</p><p>"if you knew kuchel well enough, she wouldn't hesitate to become one of the most influential figures in your life, family or not. if you met kuchel, she would make room for herself in your life no matter what. and well, she'd make sure you mattered. she'd make you feel better."</p><p>there was a long silence of levi's silent weeping, the warm, salty droplets slithering its way to the carpet under him.</p><p>"i'm not deeply saddened by the fact that she will not be there anymore to help me feel better at times. i'm crying right now because she will never..." levi's words faded into blabber. "she'll never be my mom again."</p><p><em>lovefool</em> softly played from the speakers, yet it could never be heard over levi's sobs as he walked back down the staircase.</p><p><br/>♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥<br/><br/></p><p>in a matter of two months, levi had went from erratic sobbing sessions trapped inside of the room he shared with marie's daughter, sarah, to extended periods of spacing out at random intervals.</p><p>at these moments, levi couldn't tell you exactly what he was thinking, because he didn't know himself.</p><p>sometimes, he felt like he was not living in his own body. like he was following the protagonist of another slice-of-life book, or he was just an outsider, peeking into another's world.</p><p>these feelings had started promptly after the pretty boys at his school found out about his mother's death. at first, nobody told, out of the wishes of levi.</p><p>after a while, levi got called out to visit guidance counselors, to talk after class with teachers, and people started to get suspicious of him. there were apparently outlandish rumors that had surfaced and drowned since then until someone had picked up on a conversation.</p><p>the pretty boys were not so pretty when it came to levi. with eren, though, they seemed to keep their proud smiles to eren as they passed in corridors and the whoops of pride after meets. eren hated it. called it the 'pretty boy simulator', and how they only associated with him whenever he ran.</p><p>"you make their team win, they love you for three days," eren said with a chuckle. "if you do anything that isn't strictly masculine, they call you a pillow-biter for the rest of your school career. oh, but bisexual girls are cute."</p><p>levi laughed with him, extending it for a second longer than necessary, not ready to let that feeling go.</p><p>sometimes, when levi's numbness had scooted over for a bit to let actual emotion in, stress from his classes and theater had no problem rushing to fill that hole.</p><p>and most times, when stress reached a point, his body disconnected itself. it changed levi's perspective from first to third person.</p><p>he hated thinking over his blank thoughts, pondering about the fact that his right to feel had been evoked. because thinking about it, and describing it to himself in his head made him feel insane.</p><p>so instead, he closed his eyes, and the overwhelming feeling of gaping space enclose him.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. eleven years.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>kuchel's death day was a day of quiet grieving for levi. although now, it seemed like every moment of time, levi was grieving his mother.</p><p>mikasa, sarah, and the others accompanied him in the silence. sarah and levi's friends were now on a first-name basis with each other, seeing as they were always there to support levi. they even played scrabble on particularly boring days where the peaceful stillness of the air wasn't enough.</p><p>it was different for carla.</p><p>one year after kuchel's death, carla sat on the couch, alone. her husband had tried especially hard to comfort her, but all she did was distance herself. ask for space and her own time to mourn. and grisha respected her.</p><p>one year after kuchel's death, and carla could not stop thinking of her. of that night.</p><p>she could not waver the warmth it brought to her stomach when she saw her damper grin, her fidgety hands, her insufferable annoyance. it lingered, and glided throughout her body, making her legs feel weak and her arms sore.</p><p>she could not stop thinking of that night two years ago at carla's house when grisha was visiting his parents, and kuchel stayed over. the night that only happened once, and was never talked about again.</p><p>and when she thought about the night, one nerve cell in carla's brain wished that it could, somehow, some way, happen again. even if it is against the promise she made for her marriage and the promise she made to eren when she bore him.</p><p>and for some reason, with eren's bisexuality and kuchel's natural beauty, carla doubted her own tendencies.</p><p>just when she was thinking about all the possibilities that night had, and all the consequences for each opportunity, there were three loud knocks at the door. carla got off the couch to answer it.</p><p>marie stood at the door, holding a curling piece of parchment.</p><p>"oh, marie? what are you doing here?"</p><p>she extended her hand and gave carla the paper.</p><p>"it's kuchel's... you know."</p><p>death day. it's the day where her last breath exalted itself from her lungs. the day where her star in the universe had died out, shining its last bright beams to everyone in a big explosion.</p><p>carla nodded.</p><p>"she wanted me to give this to you. a year after she died," marie said in a hushed voice.</p><p>carla opened the door wider to let marie in, and locked the door after her.</p><p>"had a big heart, y'know."</p><p>marie had went her way into the kitchen, brewing up some tea faster than marie's mother did. carla could almost laugh. they were almost the same. doing things in other people's kitchens before they could even ask.</p><p>"that, she did," carla agreed. she flipped the paper on it's written side, taking a deep breath.</p><p>her curt handwriting wasn't much unlike levi's. messy in all situations. carla smiled at the memory of scolding kuchel for how urgently she wrote.</p><p>there weren't many lines on the paper. it wasn't even a letter addressed to carla, completely contrary to what she had expected. and yet, she felt like the words were meant for her, and her only.</p><p>
  <em>LOVEFOOL.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>have you ever heard of that song? i haven't, until recently.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>when i first heard it, it was not the vocalist's cutesy little voice that appetizes me. it was the lyrics that her cutesy little voice was singing. the lyrics that have been stuck in my head ever since you kissed me.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>the song is about a young pretty girl in a relationship with someone that has fallen out of love with her. but yet, she still cannot let go of the love that they once had. she cries, and she begs, just for him to love her.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>and at last, she realizes that he will never love her like he used to. she has realized that their relationship will never go back to that sweet honeymoon phase. and still, she cannot let go.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>so she pleads, and pleads for him to say that he loves her. even if it's a lie. even if she really is being fooled in her love. she doesn't care if their relationship doesn't have a thread anymore. she begs him to pretend that their thread has never snipped away.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>quite similar, is it?</em>
</p><p>
  <em>i love you.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>when you kissed me on your couch, my emotions ran miles. i think about it every night, pursing my lips in a way to imagine yours again. it shouldn't have ever happened. you shouldn't have kissed me.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>but you did. and now, because of that kiss, i will never forget. i will die a lovefool.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>and now, because of my death, you will die one, too.</em><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>it was not the first time they heard a curse word.</p><p>with misogynistic rap and little white boys, came curse words, and slurs they <em>know</em> they shouldn't be saying.</p><p>with anger, came curse words. with pride, came curse words. with happiness, came curse words.</p><p>armin, himself, liked the use of cursing and swearing and even <em>endorsed</em> it. when eren asked him about it once, he merely laughed.</p><p>"haven't you noticed already? the negative light of swearing is simply another work of <em>the norm. </em>there would be nothing wrong with swear words if we were not so quick to be offended by the use of them. society itself has decided as a whole that swear words were, in fact, bad, and should not be used in an environment."</p><p>he even went on to say that cursing is good! eren couldn't believe it.</p><p>"in fact, swear words should be seen in a positive light. as an indicator that whoever you're using them with is close to you to the extent of becoming informal. not to mention that it is a powerful way to express your emotions."</p><p>"my mother told me once that cursing shrinks your vocabulary," he said, challenging armin's idea, despite him bringing up the concept that he loved too much.</p><p>armin sighed and ruffled eren's hair out of boredom.</p><p>"your mother is an old woman. you might think of her in as nothing but perfection, but she's not likely to follow each new case study there is about any specific subject. old women tend to stick with one idea and never change it."</p><p>but eren huffed, taking one bite out of armin's salad, to which armin protested to with a "hey!" and went for retaliation, but realized that eren was eating that ghastly cheeseburger again. armin was strictly plant-based and refused to eat chicken that was anywhere except his salad.</p><p>"stop calling my mom close-minded. most boys would strike you in an instant for that."</p><p>armin chuckled and bit off a piece of carrot. "well, i trust you not to strike me for mere speculation, yes?"</p><p>and eren wouldn't. so he accepted the truth and accepted curse words.</p><p>he still had never said one before. none of his friends had. well, in front of him.</p><p>one day, eren walked into the "white room", which was levi's term for his bedroom, which was painted all white, floor and wall.</p><p>it reminded eren of padded cells, but in mere minutes of comparing it to padded cells, he urged himself to stop. because padded cells were for the insane, and if levi trapped himself in a padded cell after school, even refusing to go to theater classes at times, that meant that levi was insane.</p><p>levi hated being possibly insane. he didn't want to think about the probability of his brain slowly twisting and turning gears the wrong way, and loosening them. he didn't want to be in a real padded cell, and he made that explicitly clear to eren.</p><p>levi was sitting at the middle of his room, speaking with a low, eccentric tone to sarah, while mikasa braided his hair nonchalantly.</p><p>"undershave's lookin' sweet today," sarah commented. "how you do it?"</p><p>"i shave it myself." levi said with a shrug. "the barbers always go too high or too low. it's better to do it on my own."</p><p>"do it on yo' own?" sarah said incredulously. "i could never."</p><p>levi got up to get the gameboard of scrabble out. he always put the games in his closet, but today, there were little boxes of miscellaneous items blocking the closet door. levi pushed them aside carelessly, but one of them had a sharp end and scratched levi's leg as it moved.</p><p>"fuck!" he whispered, kicking the box again for good measure. the five other people in the room stared at him.</p><p>"what?" he said, pulling out the gameboard at last.</p><p>"oh, nothing," said armin slyly, taking a glance at eren and smiling.</p><p><br/>
❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>kuchel sighed and collapsed on the couch in the sunroom. carla chuckled, repositioning herself to face kuchel.</p><p>"levi's asleep?"</p><p>"yes, finally! that little rascal, it took five dr. suess books to knock him out!"</p><p>kuchel groaned and got back up to look out the window, her arms on the back of the couch and her knees on the cushion.</p><p>"it's very dark. eery."</p><p><em>"eery?" </em>carla repeated with a snicker, then said the word like she was a ghost. "<em>eeee-</em>ry."</p><p>carla was now busting out with laughter, reiterating the word every time it seemed like she was going to stop. kuchel stared at her.</p><p>"what's so funny about eery?"</p><p>"it's so—hah!—weird. imagine a british person saying it. <em>ehry</em>."</p><p>this time, kuchel joined in on the laughter, then stood up, and did her own impression of a british guy.</p><p>"blohdy <em>fookin'</em> ehry, mate! you're fookin' ehry!"</p><p>"you ehry bastard!" carla exclaimed, jumping up as well. kuchel ran behind the couches, near the windows.</p><p>"come here, you ehry bitch!"</p><p>carla sped over to kuchel and grabbed her from behind, giggling. they both toppled over the back of the couch and fell on it.</p><p>their bodies were facing opposite directions, yet their faces were so close that it gave carla a high feeling.</p><p>then she was panting, gasping for breath from running around with kuchel. as much as she loved doing yoga, her breath never failed to give out.</p><p>she was getting up, ready to say goodnight to kuchel and head to bed, but right before she could lift her legs, kuchel left her frozen with one motion.</p><p>it was just a peck. a teensy, tiny, little peck on the lips that could easily be mistaken for a wrong movement.</p><p>with one peck, carla felt the rush of excitement course throughout her, like pandora's box had just been opened. it was like a worldwide festival of fireworks and lights full of laughter and fun had just began in carla's stomach.</p><p>she was drowning—no, burning! she was engulfed in a tingly warm sensation that made her jitter.</p><p>she could not stop herself from moving forward as well, and softly touching kuchel on her lips. neither of them said anything.</p><p>after a while, carla got up, and looked back once at kuchel, before heading upstairs, getting ready for bed.</p><p>she could not stop her legs from shaking that entire night.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. twelve years.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡<br/><br/></p><p>eren was thirteen when he saw a repeated event of that day in second grade. the day when eren and levi were standing outside the school front doors, and when levi had spotted eighth grade pretty girls stroll up to a pretty boy's car.</p><p>this time, he did not have little peeking holes from levi's hands that he had forgotten to cover. there was nobody stopping him from watching what they were doing.</p><p>eren and armin both stopped walking as they watched.</p><p>the pretty girls were all in a group, some of them he recognized this time because they were his own classmates. the ones that loved to spread annoying rumors that so-and-so liked eren. he hated the attention because it immediately went straight to his head, and it was a bother for armin to humble eren each time he heard another one.</p><p>armin's greatest fear from eren playing the same sport his entire childhood and being <em>talented</em> at it was that, like all other athletes he knew in his grade, he would boast every chance he got, completely disregarding other lives. he would become the norm.</p><p>thankfully, ever since armin had met him, he had been able to keep eren under the belt.</p><p>so now, eren watched with wide eyes as he saw a pretty girl get into a car with a much older pretty boy. he watched the pretty boy slide the money to the pretty girl, and he watched them drive off.</p><p>"a horrible branch of the norm, if i must say," armin finally said, speaking in the forced muteness. "that a woman must always abide by a man's will, and eventually, she too will find pleasure in it."</p><p>"i agree completely," he murmured. "it's abominable, and yet, it always happens."</p><p>armin paused to fiddle with the top of eren's head, twirling the strands that fell from his temple.</p><p>"eren, if you were to ever like a person—this is <em>hypothetical</em>, seeing how uncomfortable you get with any mention about likings—that you cherished more than anything, but they seemed so quietly unavailable, would you still continue your likings for them?"</p><p>eren gulped. armin's voice had lowered from his regular tone to that know-it-all whisper eren was too familiar with, and not once did he stop tugging on random hairs of eren's head.</p><p>when armin asked that question, too many yelling statements in eren's head soared, all screaming one thing. this was eren's chance.</p><p>it was far from normal, eren had to note. armin hated normal more than eren ever could, though. and that meant extending to the point of confessing to your best friend right after witnessing your classmate walking into the act of sex with a high schooler that had to be at least four years older than them.</p><p>"did you aim that question purposely to see if it were hypothetical or not?"</p><p>"well, with all leading questions, i aimed to see more out of your body language than your spoken language," armin said, chuckling, "but i think i don't need your answer."</p><p>eren took a breath, preparing himself for what he was about to do. easing himself into a subject was hard enough when it was someone who did not understand his every word as armin did.</p><p>when he had first told mikasa of his crush, using terms she had only heard from her friends, she had turned him down with confused, twisted words.</p><p>but with armin, he knew what eren would say before he even spoke it. with one look at armin, eren knew that armin knew what he was trying to say, and still, he was watching him with a curled smile, waiting for him to say something. he was torturing him!</p><p>"i, uh, i've actually had an unexplainable passion for someone who was too distant of the world to ever indulge in worldly pleasures before. it's continuing, to be honest."</p><p>"oh, have you, now?" armin said, placing his hand on eren's shoulder.</p><p>eren's jaw started to feel slack, like he was already tired of explaining the feelings armin knew he felt.</p><p>"i've liked you too." armin said, looking in front of him. "i can't recall the exact moment i started to feel such intensity of emotion every time you're around me, but i'm sure you feel it too."</p><p>"have you ever been wrong?"</p><p>"i've forgotten such time that i was," he said with a smile.</p><p>armin's hand, that was once resting on the top of eren's head, was now making its way to the back. eren moved to be right in front of armin, and they stared for five seconds and laughed.</p><p>eren shushed him, in an attempt to not start laughing like him.</p><p>"shh, shh, let's just get this over with," he said, putting his lips to armin's.</p><p>armin's muffled laugh made its way into eren's mouth—metaphorically, of course. armin would've never agreed to a french kiss—and eren stepped away from armin, clutching his stomach as he cackled.</p><p>"i... armin..." eren said through fits of hilarity. armin was on the floor, kicking his legs in the air.</p><p>"armin... stop!"</p><p>armin had finally stopped wheezing on the floor and got up, wiping his eyes.</p><p>"that was the closest to the norm i have ever seen you."</p><p><br/>♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥<br/><br/></p><p>walking side by side, armin and eren swung their hands as they made their way to the ice cream parlor.</p><p>"you have to visit this one," armin said, coaxing him into a date. "they have blue moon ice cream."</p><p>"what's blue moon ice cream?" eren asked.</p><p>"only the best ice cream ever, thank you very much," armin said, opening the shop's door.</p><p>armin and eren were the only ones inside. the shop itself gave off a very retro vibe, with the blue counter and the red bar stools that contrasted with the checkered floor.</p><p>"it's been here since forever if you couldn't notice. they haven't remodeled it since it was first opened."</p><p>eren stared around, at the many posters that covered the walls, not letting one inch of it roam free. he clutched armin's hand.</p><p>armin walked up to the glass shield that separated armin from the tubs of various flavors. one of the employees that were previously running everywhere hastily walked to armin to take his order.</p><p>"two of the medium blue moons."</p><p>"hey! i didn't agree on having one!" eren protested, but both armin and the employee raised their eyebrows.</p><p>"you'll want one, trust me," she chuckled, scooping them up. "cup or cone?"</p><p>"cone."</p><p>she put three scoops of ice cream in each cone, then handed them to eren and armin. armin withdrew his hand quickly to pay for the desserts.</p><p>"thank you, have a nice day!" she said, before taking the next customer's order. they sat down in the stools, and armin had started to eat off of his.</p><p>"you bite your ice cream?" eren said incredulously. "your poor teeth."</p><p>"my teeth don't have feeling in them. i can bite ice cream, unlike you."</p><p>"you're a psychopath," eren said with a laugh. armin joined in as well.</p><p>"what can i say? if you don't follow the norm, you die crazy or alone."</p><p>eren sighed. "you know, this is our date, armin. the time we get to know each other even more. let's not talk about the many shortcomings of society right now?"</p><p>"fine. i'll be the norm just this time."</p><p>"that includes no mentions of the norm. if it's supposed to hover over us silently, that means you can't talk about it!"</p><p>armin opened his mouth to say something—which was most likely along the lines of "you're being the norm," but realized that meant he was talking about it, which wasn't the norm—and closed it. eren smiled and grabbed his hands.</p><p>"you're doing perfectly fine already. now, why do you have such a big house?"</p><p>"grandfather's a retired professor and published researcher," he said, "but money's just a social construct anyway. how's your mother?"</p><p>"she's been restless since kuchel, but, seeing how close they were, that's to be expected," eren said with a sigh.</p><p>armin scooped a tiny bit of the blue ice cream onto his finger and then flicked it unto eren's head, laughing. eren snorted.</p><p>"do you find amusement from every little thing?"</p><p>"no, just you."</p><p>eren scoffed and looked out the window, not sure how to handle armin being corny. he scooped a bit into his mouth and started idly chatting with the other.</p><p>that day, they were the norm. they exited the parlor and walked through the park, went to a restaurant, adventured through an abandoned building, and eventually went to their respective homes.</p><p>and nevertheless, eren skipped his way upstairs. for one of the first times he had ever knowingly complied with the norm, it felt great. it felt wonderful. he even thought, for one moment, that he would do it again.</p><p>the norm was scary.<br/><br/></p><p>♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥<br/><br/></p><p>if they were being honest, and completely honest, eren and armin were awkward with each other.</p><p>and that was completely normal and expected! after all, they were an eight-grade couple. if they weren't already enrolling in the same high school—their city was fairly short in resources, and only had one high school for accelerated kids—they would probably be unofficially voted to be the most likely to break up.</p><p>and no, it would not be because of the stability of their relationship. if they hadn't been close before, it was like now all they could think about was each other. it would be because eren had openly told everyone of his grade that he was not the norm, and that was so quickly discouraged.</p><p>levi was still moping, but he stopped skipping theater because of it, and his friends were required to tend to him after school as much. although, they all still silently agreed to come, because they all had started to like playing the same stupid games over and over again.</p><p>armin had been forced to succumb to the norm of relationships and seemed to take more of an interest to the bridge of eren's nose than he ever had. he slid his finger down it sometimes, bopping eren on the nose.</p><p>sometimes, when simple flicks didn't seem fit, he rested his hands on eren's shoulders. eren cherished it, but it made it extremely unpleasant for everyone else in the room.</p><p>"please stop making sarah uncomfy. we're trying to play uno," mikasa said.</p><p>"stacks or numbers?"</p><p>"both," farlan said with a bored tone as if he had seen enough of eren and armin's behavior. sarah was counting down in her head how many seconds it would be until they both separated from the group to idly talk.</p><p>it was a nuisance for everyone else, but eren and armin didn't pay attention. they adored each other too much. they were truly lovefools; blind in love, and neither of them could awake out of that comfortable sleepy state to notice.</p><p>so they kept blindly loving each other.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. thirteen years.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><br/>
♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡<br/>
♡<br/>
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</p><p>levi ackerman, for the record, is not straight. </p><p>with one glance at him, you could tell that his feelings were not composed of strictly females. it was a silent observation that everyone had made by now, and after years of levi ackerman being your classmate, you wouldn't care that much. levi knew this, and he embraced it. </p><p>and yet, there was a minor problem. levi didn't know where his feelings ended.</p><p>while he did have immense romantic passion towards people of the opposite gender, he also held that same spark to the hundred other genders there were. </p><p>not to mention the concept of sex! oh, it confused levi to his very last nerve cell. did he ever want to imagine lying in the same bed as someone else, even going as far as<em> spooning </em>them? would he ever favor touching someone else's skin in his sleep, looking at another's private parts, and liking it?</p><p>ghastly. scandalous. revolting.</p><p>these thoughts started when mikasa was complaining about her classmates during lunch.</p><p>"i'm glad you guys aren't horny teenagers. it's like i'm surrounded by them now!"</p><p>"horny? they're aroused?" levi asked, spooning a diced strawberry in his mouth.</p><p>"it's only natural, with puberty and hormones," armin added from the end of the table. "they just tend to verbalize it more than us."</p><p>"armin, you've felt like that before?"</p><p>armin clicked his tongue, trying to find something to say, and sighed. </p><p>"well, it's hard to explain it. i don't have sexual urges. it's all just a worldly process for me, you know? it's much more fun for me to read a book than the thought of coition."</p><p>he agreed, even nodding his head at armin's words. judging by the look on mikasa's face, that wasn't the normal move. was he supposed to disagree? he couldn't tell.</p><p>"levi, you do know that isn't natural, right?" mikasa said. armin shushed her immediately.</p><p>"what are you doing, participating in the norm? don't dehumanize him for not being the majority," he said curtly, scolding her. then, he turned to levi, placed his hands over levi's, and smiled.</p><p>"levi, i'm ace. that's why i don't feel sexual attraction."</p><p>levi blinked. there was a term for that? an actual community? for a minute, he thought that they both were just outsiders; they were in most situations.</p><p>"what's ace?"</p><p>"asexual. it means you experience little to no sexual attraction. you could still have sexual desire or libido, of course, seeing as they are different," he rambled. "and you could still enjoy sex, just not feel a particular need to have it. it means different things to different people, i can't exactly define it to you."</p><p>still, mikasa squinted her eyes at levi, as if he was the sun, and she forgot to wear glasses.</p><p>"levi, are you...?"</p><p>"i think so."<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥<br/>
♥<br/>
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</p><p>"you know what? fuck labels." </p><p>armin had sat him down, numerous articles, blogs, and videos pulled up on his laptop. he was determined to educate levi, to make him a little less confused.</p><p>"really?" armin asked, pausing a video that explained communities all in the asexual umbrella.</p><p>"yes. fuck them all. they're just making me more confused, and i really don't want to define what i feel with one single word anymore. knowing that i'm not a lunatic is enough for me."</p><p>armin clapped and cheered, closing his computer. he ushered eren in at once. "no labels! nonconforming levi!" he said incoherently, though eren seemed to understand.</p><p>"oh, cool. great. i'm happy for you, lev," he said with a pat on the back. levi froze at once, hearing that nickname.</p><p>"um, okay."</p><p>mikasa peeked out the corner, walking into the room as well. levi didn't know that <em>everyone</em> had been over armin's house today.</p><p>"so you're... you know...?"</p><p>"yeah."</p><p>"awesome."</p><p>he nodded, and mikasa hugged him, trying to silently tell him that she supported him, though she held herself on too high a pedestal to ever say it out loud.</p><p>they played scrabble after.<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥<br/>
♥<br/>
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</p><p>just as much as levi hated labels, eren hated going home. he extended the time that he hung out with armin, or levi, just so he'd never have to make the walk back. it wasn't because of the distance between houses, how long it took him to go to and fro, or how sore his legs would be when he went back home. it was because of his parents.</p><p>his parents weren't bad people, much from it. they worked their hardest to raise eren better than they could ever imagine, and whilst they did not achieve that, eren didn't end up completely <em>horrible.</em></p><p>after kuchel's drift from the world, the dark outline of their marriage seemed to darken, until it eventually became the only color.</p><p>if there was any part of going home that eren hated the worst, it was dinner. sometimes, they ate separately and avoided any arguments. those were the best days. he ate in silence and walked back upstairs to his room, shutting the door, slamming any sound of their yelling out.</p><p>but today, his mother and father sat down at the table, and eren gulped, counting down the seconds until the chaos started.</p><p>it had been ten minutes. eren had just stabbed through lettuce and put it into his mouth when carla had looked at him.</p><p>"don't you think your father eats weird?"</p><p>eren glanced at grisha. there was nothing particularly off about his eating, it looked like how a generic person would eat. but still, carla peered at grisha, eyeing the way he cut up the chicken breast with blatant critique.</p><p>"why is everything i do peculiar to you, carla?" grisha asked, putting his utensils down.</p><p>"not everything, just–"</p><p>"is it because i don't have the same mannerisms as kuchel ackerman? or perhaps, i'm just not kuchel ackerman?"</p><p>"don't you dare put her into this!" carla bellowed, standing up. grisha stood up as well.</p><p>"it's like you hate every little thing i do! i can't even <em>breathe</em> without you having a problem with it!"</p><p>eren sighed and put his fork down, grabbing his bowl as he walked away from the dining room. their voices went from passive-aggressive sentences to screaming exclamations. eren speedily scraped the remainder of the food into the trash, put the bowl into the sink, and ran upstairs before they could insert eren in whatever they were talking about.</p><p>the screaming did not stop until long after eren fell asleep. in order to drown out their voices, throwing around levi's mother's name like it was a football, he blasted music into his ear.</p><p>while it was not good for his eardrums, it was good for his emotions. it toned them down and filed them away just long enough to fall asleep.</p><p>in one corner of his mind, he wanted them to divorce. he turned up the music louder to forget that thought.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0015"><h2>15. fourteen years.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡<br/>♡♡<br/><br/></p><p>all talk of the norm went out of the window by the time eren and armin were fourteen. instead, they filled their minds with the excitement of high school, cellphones, house keys, and new people.</p><p>and with new people, came new friends. and with new friends, came a jostling pack of diverse teens, all with distinct personalities that shouted all the same.</p><p>whilst finding new friends, eren, armin, and mikasa had all branched away from levi, and no longer came after school. they were growing up with or without levi, even if he had not wanted to accept that anymore.</p><p>with this, levi was now alone. he passed through the corridors alone, sat through the classes alone, ate the disgusting lunch that made him puke two hours later alone. he felt like he was spiraling down that black hole he had climbed so far up from.</p><p>at least he still had farlan.</p><p>"haven't packed a lunch?" farlan asked.</p><p>"nope."</p><p>"you can have some of my cinnamon rolls if you want," farlan suggested. levi shook his head.</p><p>"i'll be perfectly fine on my own, thanks."</p><p>"are you sure? i heard they left that food out for two weeks, and then tried to refrigerate it last minute," said a voice that did not belong to farlan.</p><p>a girl was standing next to where farlan was sitting, her hands on her hips, and a grin plastered upon her face.</p><p>levi just groaned and looked back down. "i'm good."</p><p>"do you like rice cake? i packed some," she said, making herself comfortable. levi looked up and snatched it out of her hand, then bit into one.</p><p>"i, um, thanks."</p><p>"no problem!"</p><p>her puffballs bounced on her head as she moved, and farlan chuckled as levi chewed off the rice cake. "who're you?"</p><p>"isabel! i was in the same preschool as you, don't you remember?"</p><p>"no. i don't remember preschool at all, actually. but nice to see you again," levi muttered.</p><p>she just giggled and started to chat with farlan, and sometimes levi butted in, but for the most part, stuck to his rice cakes.</p><p>just like that, she had made herself comfortable. she had filled the void of eren, and levi's glances at his table, as loud as they were, reduced by half.<br/><br/></p><p>♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥<br/>♥♥</p><p><br/>running track in high school was extremely different than in middle school. now, it meant more track meets, higher standards, and greater rewards. it also came with the side treat of being popular.</p><p>eren was not new to popularity—he was new to it being so blatant. in middle school, people liked him, sure, but they were never that much interested in him since he barely interacted outside his friend group.</p><p>now, it seemed that no matter what, people loved him. they didn't seem to care about his relationship with armin or the fact he was bisexual. they just loved <em>him</em>.</p><p>with track and field, he had met some of his new friends. jean, a great runner and even speedier with running his mouth, was one of the first to come to sit at his table.</p><p>"hey, mikasa," he said, sliding in a spot next to her and nodding his head to eren.</p><p>"not interested, sorry," she quickly said, scrolling through her phone. he sighed and turned his head to sasha, annoyance spreading through his face.</p><p>"can you stop munching in my ear?"</p><p>sasha made an 'mmm!' sound as she stuffed pastel-colored shrimp chips in her mouth, then turned to connie. he passed her his bag and then turned to defend her.</p><p>"you're the one that smushed yourself in between them! there's so much room on eren's side, just sit there!"</p><p>annie, ymir, and historia were on the girl's track team but practiced with eren nonetheless.</p><p>when annie saw jean hopelessly flirting with mikasa, she rolled her eyes and continued to talk about her dream that was just her slicing newborns and adult men out of the air with a katana.</p><p>"my dreams lowkey suck ass, but this one was good! i loved it. i hope i get it again so i can kill more of them."</p><p>"how is the murder of babies ever good?"</p><p>"do you know how fucking <em>annoying</em> babies are? with their whiny, snotty, helpless asses. i would dump them in hot grease and watch them<em> fry</em> if it wasn't illegal. so now, my dreams of killing kindergartners must only be dreams," she said with a somber undertone.</p><p>"sad that such creative energy must go to waste," ymir added with the same nature, shaking her head.</p><p>"oh, and men? don't even get me started on men..." she said, then threw herself into a tangent about how men should've killed themselves off centuries ago. ymir nodded at parts and chimed in on other parts, while historia fiddled with a string hanging off her grey sweater.</p><p>reiner and bertholdt, who didn't sit at his table but still acquainted with eren, waved by them as annie went on. eren seemed to drown out annie's voice and squeezed armin's hand while looking back to levi's table.</p><p>levi had not looked as sickly as he normally looked. he was actively talking to that girl with the frizzy hair.</p><p>all is well, at least. if levi's doing fine, then there was no guilt on eren's shoulders.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0016"><h2>16. fifteen years.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><br/>♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡<br/>♡♡♡<br/><br/></p><p>levi began to like eren.</p><p>levi wanted eren all to himself. he didn't want to share him with armin, mikasa, or anyone, in fact. he wanted to hide eren in his backpack, to keep him covered in the blankets of his brain.</p><p>to him, eren was no longer human. he did not possess flaws of any kind, he could never make a mistake.</p><p>with eren, it was like levi had put a filter on him. it was like he had utterly refused to see what eren truly was, and instead, saw imaginary flowers blooming from the patches of grass he ran on, heard angels and opera singers instead of eren's voice. </p><p>he had planted a false perception, a false attitude, of eren. he wished so desperately for him to be perfect.</p><p>respect for armin flew by in the wind, replacing it with the harsher blow of envy and jealousy. he was full of poison, and he was addicted to it.</p><p>"levi," muttered one of his friends, hange zoë. "do you want your chocolate milk? because if you're not gonna drink it, then i'll take it."</p><p>"shut up, could you?"</p><p>hange scoffed and instead turned to talk with erwin, pushing her glasses up as she raved on about the same thing as she always did.</p><p>farlan and isabel were not with them today. instead of sitting down with a mopey levi, enthusiastic hange, and a pleasant erwin, they decided to stroll around the school aimlessly. </p><p>there was nobody to stop levi was staring at eren's table with intense fascination, unconsciously imagining himself as armin, replacing the blonde hair with black, replacing the long hair with short.</p><p>and yet, he would never be armin. he would never skip in the hallways, holding hands with the pretty boy. he would never wander the school premises while looking for an exit with the pretty boy.</p><p>he would never be the perfect, pretty boy. and yet, levi wanted to be him so badly.<br/><br/></p><p>❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥<br/>❥❥❥<br/><br/></p><p>"eren, you have to see the view!" armin shouted, looking behind him to see that eren was racing after him.</p><p>"it's a very gorgeous sunset," he said, grabbing armin's hand once he had stopped running. they walked down the slope and settled by the moderately brown sand near the water.</p><p>armin laid down the red checkered picnic blanket and eren sat down the basket and radio. they looked at each other for three seconds and laughed.</p><p>"why are you looking at me like that?" eren asked, tuning the radio to armin's favorite radio.</p><p>"you looked at me first, you nincompoop. i just returned the gesture," armin said, bopping his head a bit at the song playing.</p><p>eren huffed and sat down on the blanket, pulling a juice box, sipping on the apple juice.</p><p>"we have to see this again someday," eren said dazedly, staring at the motionless waters, throwing a stone into it just to see the light pitter-patter it had.</p><p>"we will, i promise."</p><p>armin clutched his hand, and only the draining noises of eren sipping his apple juice could be heard.</p><p>armin gathered sand in his hand and poured it down eren's head, a smile on his face.</p><p>"aah! <em>armin!"</em></p><p>"there's no more juice in that, stop it," he said, pointing at the carton in eren's hand. both their heads turned up to the sky when they felt little dribbles of water hit their scalps.</p><p>a soft mist trickled down from the sky, as the herds of light grey clouds floated over their heads. the singer drawled out her words, a melodic ukelele playing behind her lyrics, static blurring her lines.</p><p>eren's legs laid next to armin's, and he kicked them together. struggling to find something to do with them, armin crumbled to the old habit and began playing with eren's hair, dividing the layers of it and threading his fingers through the tangled mess.</p><p>armin slipped his hand into eren's pocket, taking out a singular piece of wrapped gum.</p><p>"hey, that's my last one!"</p><p>"whoops."</p><p>armin smiled cheekily at eren and popped the stick in his mouth, chewing it in eren's face. eren sighed, as he felt the wet sand on his hand.</p><p>eren had almost gathered the nerve to feel angry, or even upset, at armin, but with one glance at the boy who had now had his head tilted to the sunset, popping the cherry-flavored bubblegum on his lips.</p><p>he had fallen victim to the killer pretty boy, armin arlert. he had fallen so deep in that his heart burst with confetti, sparkles, and sunshine whenever they made eye-contact.</p><p>he was a lovefool. and he accepted that if that meant that he could be with armin arlert.</p><p> </p><p>♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥<br/>♥♥♥<br/><br/></p><p>eren followed slowly behind armin, their head resting on his shoulder and only moving when armin did.</p><p>"are you sure this will cheer me up?" eren asked, still not looking up.</p><p>"i promise."</p><p>months after the violent yelling, the increasing amount of mother-son bonding parties, the constant 'pick a side' conversations, and weeks after eren's parents were ultimately divorced, and eren had to pack his bags in one suitcase every week to go to someone else's house—although his father's 'house' was just a hotel he had been sleeping in— eren hadn't been able to function.</p><p>armin noticed this. so he brought him back to the one place that he had seen eren most enthralled in.</p><p>keeping eren's head on his shoulder, he refused to tell him where they were going until they had made it down there.</p><p>"okay, okay, you can lift your head now."</p><p>eren looked up and saw the same scene he had seen a minimum of three months ago. a lake's sunset.</p><p>it was like all the pastels and darks had joined together, yet, they had never fully mixed. exquisite zig-zags of orange and red decorated the pink sky. white clouds settled in on the sun, and armin looked back at him.</p><p>he opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, something in the sand slipped and he fell down. eren hastily dropped down to help him up, but armin looked back to see what he had tripped on.</p><p>"what's up?" eren asked.</p><p>"i think i just stepped on something."</p><p>"well, of course, you did," eren said with a chuckle. armin shook his head and began digging at the sand.</p><p>armin was right in his suspicions when he dug far enough. concealed in the sand was a turtle nest, with one medium-sized turtle sticking its head out.</p><p>"eren! you have to see this! there's a turtle in here!"</p><p>eren scrambled over and saw that, indeed, the green mass in armin's hands was a turtle shell, and the four webbed legs that slightly stuck out belonged to a turtle.</p><p>"poor thing. it was probably suffocating."</p><p>armin nodded and then stroked its shell for a few moments, to which it hissed and turned, biting armin on the finger. he yelped.</p><p>"how disagreeable!" was the first thing that came to his mind. eren laughed. only armin would think of such a way to describe a turtle that had just bit them.</p><p>"disagreeable dave doesn't like you touching its shell," eren joked in a sing-song tone.</p><p>"that scared me," he said with a sigh. "i thought i had killed it when i stepped on it."</p><p>"i'm glad you didn't. killing animals really isn't your thing."</p><p>"thank you, i appreciate it," armin said, giggling. "i don't really <em>strive</em> to be an animal killer."</p><p>throwing his head back, the necklace with that long, dangling key on the chain flew off and rested on the sand in front of him.</p><p>armin went to pick it up, but eren was faster. he went to fasten it on armin's neck, but armin waved his hand.</p><p>"you can keep it."</p><p>"what?"</p><p>"i was planning on giving it to you, anyway. i had forgotten to, so now, this is me giving it to you. happy birthday?"</p><p>"it's not my birthday."</p><p>"pretend that it is."</p><p>armin positioned himself behind eren and clipped it behind his head.</p><p>"it's a key to something in my house. but you don't get to see it until we're married, okay?"</p><p>"why until we're married? that's too long, isn't it?"</p><p>"it's a test of our love," armin said dreamily. "if we make it all the way to marriage, i'll let you see all my secrets."</p><p>eren huffed, armin throwing his arms around him. "just wait! it'll only be a few more years."</p><p>"i guess."</p><p>"the last one to the lake is a rotten egg!" he called, racing into the water, though he still had his school clothes on.</p><p>"i never agreed to get wet, and you're not gonna trick me into destroying my uniform!"</p><p>"your loss, you rotten egg," he said, doggy-paddling in the water. eren chuckled and rested his head against the sand, relaxing, and closing all his senses down.</p><p>it was a mistake to go to sleep. merely because armin did not know how to swim.</p><p>ten minutes in, armin had made a mistake. he ventured to a dangerous part of the lake.</p><p>the rip currents carried armin faster then he could ever keep himself up, and he made another mistake. he panicked.</p><p>the colliding waves began to push armin under, and he could not rise himself up. he thrashed around, white splashes of water erupted, and yet, he wasn't able to get oxygen.</p><p>suddenly, the violent splatters stopped, and instead, a rigid, stiff, body floated up to the surface.</p><p>eren was now awake.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0017"><h2>17. sixteen years.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><br/>♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡<br/>♡♡♡♡<br/><br/></p><p>eren was no longer perfect.</p><p>he was never perfect, though levi had blatantly refused to accept that. </p><p>but now, he sat in the auditorium with an indescribable expression, blankly staring at armin's smiling face on the posters, and the large picture of armin, mikasa, eren, levi, and farlan standing together in the middle-school playground broadcasted on the large projector.</p><p>mikasa was escorted out of the room five minutes after the program began. the first few moments that she walked in, and saw the face that would no longer be next to her, she broke down.</p><p>mr. bailey hadn't known armin. </p><p>he only knew his 'close friend,' eren jaeger, who led their school to victories every year he had attended. and in all honestly, levi knew that eren jaeger was the only reason he had even felt moved to have the ceremony.</p><p>at least one kid every year killed themselves due to the sheer stress this school has brought them. levi didn't know their names. nobody knew their names. levi knew that mikasa knew this too.</p><p>so she screamed. she screamed louder then the principal could ever speak with that expensive microphone of his. and all attention had diverted from him to her, as she ran down the aisle to the stage, her fists raised and her tears flying behind her.</p><p>security ran after her, but they were delayed due to the spell of shock they had all been under. she sped up the steps and knocked the principal square in the nose.</p><p>gasps filled the echoing room. security yelled and restrained her, but she kicked, yelling "fuck you!" as they dragged her back.</p><p>eren just stared. he did not say one word, nor show any sign of disappointment or pride on his face. he followed mikasa with his eyes until she was successfully pulled out of the room.</p><p>levi would've too, if he had the raw emotion boiling and baking inside of him to do it. but, as eren had done, he realized that he could do nothing but watch.</p><p>a large crater had formed inside of him, eating away until there was nothing left of him. when the principal spoke those generic words that levi had already heard more than enough times to have memorized it, he felt nothing but television static.</p><p>sometimes, he felt like he was not levi ackerman. like he was an anonymous onlooker to levi ackerman, flipping the pages of levi ackerman's story. he didn't feel as if he was able to tell levi ackerman's emotion, because it wasn't his to portray. so, alternatively, levi ackerman felt nothing.</p><p>hange, erwin, farlan, and isabel had all tried to comfort levi during the memorial for him. all of armin's teachers got up and spoke about him, while everyone else knew that those teachers had never paid attention to armin. he was another student of the hundreds they taught. this was, like all of the other speeches, practiced.</p><p>yet, when eren got up for his part about armin—whilst also speaking for mikasa—it was nothing but silence. television static.</p><p>and when he spoke, there was eery tranquility about his sound that displayed his struggling rage better than any other.</p><p>"if you have cried for armin arlert, i despise you. i despise you greatly, and i will despise you forever. do not cry for armin arlert."</p><p>eren was not perfect. he was far from it. in fact, he had not looked more human in that one moment.</p><p><br/>♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥<br/>♥♥♥♥<br/><br/></p><p>eren quit the track team days after the ceremony.</p><p>their coach, ms. hathaway, was more than concerned about it. she had even suggested referring him to his counselor.</p><p>"eren, what's going on?" she said in a stern voice.</p><p>"i want to quit."</p><p>"why so sudden? we have a meet coming up, you were good on the field, i don't understand–"</p><p>"i never knew that it was your place to understand my intentions, coach hath."</p><p>she sighed and went inside to dial his parents.</p><p>he sat in the waiting chair, his hands playing with the bronze key.</p><p>his parents arrived momentarily, though grisha was a bit later than carla.</p><p>"please tell me i didn't hear right on the phone, eren," grisha said, hastily sitting down beside eren in the blue chair, his eyes never moving off of eren. "quitting? why? you have full-ride scholarships waiting for you!"</p><p>"you're truly our star player," coach hathaway added.</p><p>"i do not want to run anymore."</p><p>"can't this wait until after the meet? this is such bad timing!"</p><p>"i am not running for this school ever again," eren said, expression void of any answers.</p><p>"if he wants to stop, let him, grisha. your high school days are over. stop trying to force your son to be just like you were," carla said, looking down at grisha.</p><p>"it's not about forcing him to be me, it's about his scholarships! do you know how many opportunities he is giving up?"</p><p>"it's his life," carla deadpanned. "he's sixteen, grisha. pretty <em>damn</em> capable to make his own decisions. his boyfriend..." she trailed off, remembering that eren was still right there.</p><p>"in any case, i refuse to run another day here," eren said, glaring at grisha.</p><p>"well, so be it," grisha said with a heavy sigh. "you're off the team. say goodbye to all the great colleges that were looking forward to your arrival."</p><p>"thank you."</p><p>eren walked out of the office, not sparing a glance back at his parents.<br/><br/></p><p>♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥<br/>♥♥♥♥<br/><br/></p><p>levi had not been able to talk to eren. there were no quick 'hellos!' as they passed each other in the hall as they once been. in fact, he had not been able to catch eren since the ceremony, though the teachers always told levi that eren had been there that day.</p><p>but, in actuality, it seemed like nobody was able to talk to eren.</p><p>mikasa had been expelled for 'assaulting' the principal, and annie, ymir, and historia were the only ones who had been allowed to see her at her home.</p><p>jean had practically taken eren's position on the popularity temple, as the star player of the track team with the loud table.</p><p>eren had lost his humanity. to everyone, he was no longer alive, and more so a concept than anything.</p><p>and levi loved eren. he had loved eren more than he loved himself, almost as much as he loved his mother. but he knew that eren would no longer be human.</p><p>but still, levi's love for eren did not waver.</p><p>guess he was truly a lovefool, huh?</p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0018"><h2>18. seventeen years.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><br/>♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡<br/>♡♡♡♡♡<br/><br/></p><p>eren did not want to go to homecoming. he did not want to celebrate their football team winning yet again when he could just as easily sit in his room and pretend that armin was there, humming a song.</p><p>carla, however, agreed with grisha on one thing. and it was that eren had to go to homecoming.</p><p>"you can't make me go. i'll run away," eren said.</p><p>"with what money? look, it's a glorious experience, and you're going, end of story. now put on your suit and get ready."</p><p>so eren became a pretty boy, just for that night.</p><p>he washed his hair and put it in a man bun. he slid into the tight suit and the long pants. he cooperated.</p><p>there was a phrase that eren and armin used to refer to 'cooperation,' but, for some reason, eren could not remember it.</p><p>and he got a date.</p><p>he took levi's adoptive sister, sarah smith. he did not bother to glance at levi's frowning expression when he asked.</p><p>he picked sarah smith up in carla's car and was driving her to his school.</p><p>"you know, i didn't accept this for nothing," she said, speaking in the silence. "i remember you and armin were close. always were. and now, he's gone... i just... i'm not gon' be no rebound for you, okay? i'm more than that, period."</p><p>and in this exact moment, as he was pulling into the driveway, he realized that he was never going to be able to move on from armin arlert. he was going to die a lovefool, and this time, it would be without his partner.</p><p>so he pulled in and told sarah to get out. getting some quick cash from his wallet, he gave it to sarah.</p><p>"here. call an uber back home when it's over. i'm not... i'm not going."</p><p>"what?" she said, a twirl in her voice. "please don't tell me you're bailing on me now, of all times?"</p><p>there were laughing couples walking into the school. some were hand-holding, some had their arms wrapped around their backs, and some were just walking side by side. sarah and eren, however, were none of the choices.</p><p>"i'm sorry."</p><p>"are you actually fucking kidding me? i missed out on my own homecoming for this. you cannot be ditching me right now."</p><p>"i'll see you later, sarah," he said, and then pulled out of the driveway. sarah yelled in frustration and threw her pink sparkling purse at eren's window.</p><p>that was the last encounter sarah had with eren.<br/><br/></p><p>❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥<br/>❥❥❥❥</p><p><br/>eren found himself at the lake. </p><p> every day, when school finished, he would go to the lake. he would imagine the day when he saw armin floating in the water face-down, but for some reason, whenever he tried to see armin's body, that turtle appeared.</p><p> "hey, disagreeable dave," he said. "are you thinking about it, too?"</p><p>there was no response; disagreeable dave had not even looked at eren.</p><p>"when armin had died, i, um, i hated this place, y'know? i hated every inch of it. even you, disagreeable dave."</p><p>he tugged on the key and pushed his other hand further down into the sand.</p><p>"i found out what this key unlocks to recently. it was a little cupboard in his room. full with little sticky notes of, uh, everything. and, well, now? i'm not comfortable with life, now that i know that armin had... had been..."</p><p>eren stopped talking, and now all could be heard was the telltale sign of night as crickets and cicadas chirped. </p><p>after a few more moments, dave had begun to walk back underwater when eren spoke up.</p><p>"hey, disagreeable dave, have you ever thought about quitting?"<br/><br/></p><p>♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥<br/>♥♥♥♥♥<br/><br/></p><p>on the day of homecoming, eren drove back to the lake. there was no place he thought of first that wasn't dave's lake.</p><p>today, however, he would not be allowed to lounge carelessly with disagreeable dave.</p><p>when he walked out of the car, there was loud laughter coming from the spot he usually sat in. he walked down the slope to find the most enraging thing he had seen since armin's school memorial.</p><p>a group of little children—four, at most—were crowded all around one tree, and one, in particular, was holding a dark-green mass up.</p><p>he ran up to the kids, just to see that it really was what he thought he saw.</p><p>pushing the kid away and holding him by his shirt, he shook him around.</p><p>"why? <em>why?" </em>he asked repeatedly, shaking him as he spoke. the kid held his hands up, eyes widened.</p><p>"we were just having fun. i wasn't gonna <em>kill</em> it," he said with a laugh. his friends laughed around him, but eren's rage quickly turned to happiness.</p><p>he did not relinquish his hold on the boy, instead, he carried him over to the lake and plunged him deep in the water, just as he imagined armin had.</p><p>his friends gasped and ran over to eren, trying to pull him away.</p><p>"stop! stop it!" said one of them.</p><p>"i'm just having fun. i'm not gonna kill him," eren said with a smile, mocking what the boy had said moments ago to him.</p><p>the kids run away and leave eren alone with the kid. so eren puts him further in before drawing him out.</p><p>the boy was near purple, he was coughing, and crying, and rubbing his eyes feverishly.</p><p>"you—hah—you monster!"</p><p>eren laughed at him, giggles giving him a great feeling spread throughout his body. he felt wondrous at this one moment, in his preppy suit, laughing at a kid who almost drowned.</p><p>the kids had finally come back, and this time, they came with an adult.</p><p>"he's the one! he did it!"</p><p>the man looked from eren to the boy, and back to eren. then, with one sneer, the man picked eren up and threw him in the lake.</p><p>❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦❦<br/>❦❦❦❦❦<br/><br/></p><p>eren cackled maniacally on the shore, his head to the sky and his body shivering with delight. he leaned on his arm as his sound went out, and his laugh became silent.</p><p>"maybe it is time to quit being the norm. time for my story to end."</p><p> </p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0019"><h2>19. eighteen years.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>❥❥❥❥❥❥<br/><br/></p><p>throughout most of the lesson, eren's hiccups interrupted the teacher whenever she tried to talk. she ignored it, but it annoyed levi and farlan.</p><p>when it came time for recess, farlan had dragged eren to the very end of the field. the only thing that was blocking them from the street was the iron gate.</p><p>"what do you—hic!—want?"</p><p>"stop that!" levi said, grabbing eren by the shoulders and shaking him back and forth. when eren still made that abrupt sound after, levi groaned and looked to farlan.</p><p>"how do you stop hiccups?"</p><p>he shrugged and did the most logical thing he could think of at that moment. he ran to mrs. sullivan and asked her about it.</p><p>after a few minutes of talk from mrs. sullivan, and annoying hiccups from eren—whenever levi heard him, he shook him, hoping that he could possibly scare them out—farlan ran back.</p><p>"mrs. sullivan doesn't know either. she said we should probably try to surprise eren."</p><p>eren just stared at the ground, prepared to launch himself to tears by the way his friends were treating him. levi and farlan moved away from eren to talk inconspicuously, with a few glances back at him.</p><p>then, levi crept closer, looked back at farlan, and butted his head with eren, attempting to brush his lips against eren's.</p><p>eren jumped from his place, yelping. then he hit the ground, the grass creating a spiky feeling on his legs. </p><p>glaring up at levi, he exclaimed. "ew! disgusting! you have cooties!"</p><p>"don't only girls have cooties?" farlan asked, playing with a strand of hair that fell in his face, leaning against levi's back.</p><p>eren's hiccups had stopped, but it was replaced by relentless teasing towards levi. he wished that he hadn't even tried to help eren at a point.</p><p>"no. levi has cooties because he tried to <em>smooch</em> me!"</p><p><br/>❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥<br/>❥❥❥❥</p><p><br/>"date me."</p><p>the words had spilled out of levi before he could think of anything else. he had finally been able to catch eren, as he sat on the side of the building, throwing stones.</p><p>with levi's statement, eren sighed and stood up, facing levi.</p><p>"no," was his reply. he went to walk away, but levi grabbed for his arm.</p><p>"don't you want to forget?"</p><p>eren went silent. he pursed his lips together and looked down.</p><p>"do you want to know what this key unlocks to?" he asked quietly like there were a thousand people watching him from the trees.</p><p>this did not solve levi's bewilderment. he wasn't particularly interested in anything involving that key, but if eren wanted to tell him, then so be it.</p><p>he didn't say anything, but eren continued as if levi said yes.</p><p>"there's a hidden room behind a wall of books in his room," he said quickly. "he gave me this key to unlock his... notes."</p><p>levi leaned closer, holding eren's hands in his own.</p><p>"what did they say?"</p><p>eren blankly gazed at levi, before his lips began to tremble and his eyelids started to droop.</p><p>tears stung eren's eyes. he blinked them away, trying to keep himself from ever obtaining the sweet release of tears. he didn't want his bottle of emotions to spill yet.</p><p>"eren, do you..?"</p><p>"i want," eren choked out, grabbing levi's shirt, pulling it close to himself. "i want to forget."</p><p>it was a selfish decision. eren knew that levi wanted more, he <em>always</em> would want more, than what eren had left to give to him. it was wrong for eren to take advantage of levi's bursting emotions just to ignore the ones he had for armin.</p><p>it was a quick fix, but as eren tilted his head, and their lips overlapped, eren didn't care. as he felt levi's breath quicken on his nose and his heart pound, he hoped that levi knew this, too.</p><p>as he pulled away, levi panted, as if he had held his breath for the duration of the kiss. eren muttered, his head up to the sky, trying to imagine armin as one of the clouds that passed them by.</p><p>"suicide notes."<br/><br/></p><p>♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡<br/>♡♡♡♡♡♡</p><p> </p><p>the day of the lake was the last time anyone had ever seen eren jaeger.</p><p>there was no trace of him, no fingerprint of him, not even the slightest clue where he went. about a year after he jumped off the world, they ruled him dead. they gave carla jaeger the bronze key, which eventually found its way around levi's neck.</p><p>with eren's disappearance, levi fell into a black hole. he held on to his shaking emotions so tightly, refusing to let them show. he pushed them into a bursting bottle and screwed on the top.</p><p>he quit theater right after. he disassociated himself from everyone and everything and refused to talk. his heart was bursting, throbbing with no place to go. with eren dead, his heart had frozen to the touch. </p><p>and yet, his love could not suffocate. he could not kill his love, because nobody knew if eren had really died.</p><p>sarah hadn't bothered him. in fact, she was in her own solar system. she felt unwavering guilt for eren's departure, guilt that could not go away with a few cries, and a few therapy sessions. if she had valued herself a bit less, if she had pleaded for him to dance the night away with her! oh, maybe eren would still be alive, on the brink of humanity.</p><p>it soon came time for graduation day. the day that levi's acquaintances would part away from each other and the day that isabel and farlan could no longer worry about levi. it would be the day that levi would finally be able to escape the whisperings, and the rumors and the world would simply stop.</p><p>when the school had remembered that jean kirstein, now the star of the track team, was friends with eren jaeger, the school was celebrating. people from all around sent him flowers, notes for him to stay positive, and the memorial speech. </p><p>he felt like he was eleven again. like his uncle was walking up to that pedestal with tears in his eyes, talking about a time that he and kuchel were best friends. he was filled with absolute nothingness except the stressful feeling of rage. he wanted to throw chairs, <em>tables</em>, at jean's face, just to keep him in the hospital long enough to be unable to say anything about eren jaeger.</p><p>he didn't know eren jaeger. he knew the popular running boy that fell into the norm. the perfect, the crowd-pleasing, the prideful eren jaeger. </p><p>he did not know the eren jaeger that hated bullies and called them 'pretty boys' just to annoy them, he did not know the eren jaeger who was forever displeased, the radical eren jaeger that stuffed himself with theories and nonconforming attitudes to rebel against society. </p><p>with mikasa in a group home for therapy and farlan's head in the eclipses, levi wasn't able to express this craving of violence to anybody who could honestly understand. so he corked open his bottle of emotions, deposited his amount, and hid it back inside himself.</p><p>now he was sitting in the audience, waiting for those droning speeches about new opportunities and integrity to pass by, for him to walk that stage, get his diploma, and... he didn't know what he'd do next.</p><p>when eren and levi were ten, levi had mentioned wanting to be an actor. it was his only ambition, his only talent, and teachers loved to ask him about it. eren snorted and shook his head.</p><p>"why is it that you have to know exactly what you want to do for the remaining eighty years of your life right now? why is it so weird for you to be undecided?"</p><p>levi had not given much thought to what he wanted to be and honestly didn't want to start any time soon. but now, as he watched his principal going on about 'the future generation,' he knew that ms. smith would soon chide levi for his refusal to go to university with a major if marie did not bring it up first. </p><p>they were good people, but they aimed for success. they were competitive, and no matter how much they assured you that they did not care for grades, they wanted you to be perfect.</p><p>once the valedictorian had finished their speech, there was a silence, and the announcer said the one thing that levi dreaded the most. an anvil dropped in his stomach, and jean kirstein stepped up to the lectern with his preppy black suit.</p><p>"first, i'd like to thank the parents for coming to the ceremony. and students, great job, i didn't think that half of you would make it, including me," he joked. levi gritted his teeth, hyperventilating.</p><p>if there was anything that was funny to levi right now, it was the fact that he was about to do something against the rules. and although there wasn't much the school could do against levi once he did, it reminded him of mikasa. how the ackermans love to draw attention to themselves whenever it comes to their dead friends.</p><p>he was sitting in the front row. there wasn't that much room from the stage and from himself. if he wanted to stop kirstein from saying anything about eren jaeger, it would be now.</p><p>his heart leaped up and down, edging himself forward, but still, he did not stand.</p><p>jean looked to the crowd, pausing on a few faces. levi was practically hanging off his seat.</p><p>"the first memory i have of eren is... well, him calling me 'horseface' during practice. i wasn't fast and basically lagging behind. he was on his last lap, and i was on my second. so he sped up to me, and he said, 'you know, horseface, if this was a meet, the other team would've already won and gone home. speed it up.' and, though i did argue a bit with him, he taught me the most i know."</p><p>jean wiped a tear. levi gasped and pulled back a bit. it was like someone had turned the heat from scolding hot to medium.</p><p>"eren and i weren't best friends. i had only known him for four years, you know? four years. there are people in the crowd that has known him for their <em>entire</em> lives. classmates of mine that have known him for as long as they can remember.</p><p>"and, to him, i was just a bystander. one of the many people he will meet in his life. but because of circumstances, unforeseen circumstances, well, i was one of the last people he ever met."</p><p>levi looked back to carla, who was bawling into a tissue, and a teary grisha, who did not distance himself from him but instead wrapped his arm around her, rubbing her back.</p><p>"eren was... he was everything. he cared about everyone and everything. everyone thought of him as impeccable. and he was, really. not a flaw about him. i wasn't sure if he was even human, and by the way, he was.</p><p>"and ever since armin's death, you could see it. he couldn't be perfect anymore. all those years of being the best person i have ever known, and ever will know, had caught up to him. he really couldn't be that one person you could always depend on anymore, because it was too <em>exhausting</em> for him to be."</p><p>levi had relaxed in his seat, seeing that jean kirstein had not come with a prepared speech. he was speaking out of his own tone, out of his own words that were not enhanced by his parents, or apps, or anyone.</p><p>and it was like that until the principal had come out.</p><p>there was not supposed to be another speech. there was a poem that was supposed to be read, and then the calling of names.</p><p>maybe he had come out for one ending address?</p><p>"thank you, jean, for those wonderful words for eren jaeger. i'm sure if it had been different, that he would be sitting in the crowd right now, waiting for his name to be called."</p><p>levi felt the temperature rising.</p><p>"now, if i could add a few of my own words in honor of eren."</p><p>he felt sweaty. his hands were shaking, and he felt a headache coming on. a high feeling ran to his mind and back down.</p><p>"eren jaeger was a star in both his classes and in sports. his talent was nearly unmatched."</p><p>he was moving forward now, right off his seat.</p><p>"teachers say he was excellent at any work they gave him, that he always participated whenever he could."</p><p>he was off the seat, now crouching down, moving out the aisles, and holding a finger to his mouth as he watched the confused expressions of his classmates. he was going to do it. he really was.</p><p>"it is a misfortune, really, of the terrible end of him. authorities say–"</p><p><em>go</em>, levi!</p><p>he pushed himself out the aisle and raced up the stage. the principal stopped talking and looked at levi.</p><p>levi pushed him out the way and grabbed the microphone, staring directly into his eyes.</p><p>"shut the <em>fuck</em> up!" he said.</p><p>"how dare you dishonor eren's name? how dare you define him by how he does his work, or how many wins he brings this wretched school? eren was more than you could ever explain, more than you could ever<em> understand!</em> don't you dare speak his name to only tell the tales he gave you!"</p><p>levi took a pause for breath, which allowed him the time to answer. he stood silent but held a hand up to stop security from taking him out of the room.</p><p>"do you know the name of the kid who <em>killed himself </em>this year, because of the utter stress his classes gave him? will they get a memorial? will you, mr. bailey, come to this stage, and speak their name?"</p><p>levi knew the microphone was going to cut off at any given moment, but he felt overstimulated. he just wanted to say something, say anything.</p><p>"this school is not a fucking heaven's gate! it's a hellhole! you spit on a person's name and only speak of the shit they've handed you, but not of the things they've handed to <em>us</em>, and you want me, you want eren's parents, you want eren's friends to accept that? you will never know eren jaeger because all you know is his uniform!</p><p>"you don't have the right to impose an opinion of him! you don't have the right to think anything of him, because you don't know him! and you know what, mr. bailey? i know eren jaeger. because i <em>love</em> him!"</p><p>that addictive feeling went away, but levi did not stop. he stared hard into the eyes of his principal, and held the microphone close up to himself. he felt security inching closer, and he knew that the microphone was likely to not work by now. he dropped it to the floor.</p><p>"I LOVE EREN JAEGER! i've loved him for years, and i have never stopped! do you know how much i would give to see him for another day, no matter his condition? do you understand how many books i would read just for another page of his story?"</p><p>he dropped down to the floor, sobbing. two people in blue uniforms picked him up by the arms and dragged him out.</p><p>his bottle of emotions was tumbling, shattering into pieces like glass. his grief, his anger, his <em>sadness</em>, all of its contents were seeping out.</p><p>now he felt nothing. he had screamed his emotions out, and now, he was sore, being drifted away with the wind.</p><p>his story was ending. this was his final page, his final dialogue.</p><p>he looked down to his hands and laughed.</p><p>"if only i were a lovefool."</p><p> </p>
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